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MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 


MORALE 
AND  ITS  ENEMIES 


BY 


WILLIAM  ERNEST  HOCKING 
Author  of  "Human  Nature  and  Its  Remaking,"  etc 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON— HUMPHREY    MILFORD— OXFORD    UNIVERSITY 

PRESS 

MDCCCCXVIII 


COPYBIQHT,    1918,    BY 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


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Oon  3 


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TO  THE  YOUNG  OFFICERS 
OF  THE  AMERICAN  EXPEDITIONARY  FORCE 
WHO  AS  CHIEF  BUILDERS   OF  THE   MORALE 
OF   A    GREAT   ARMY    DO    MUCH    TO    SHAPE 
THAT  OF  THE  NATION  FOR  YEARS  TO  COME 


PREFACE 

War  carries  the  minds  as  well  as  the  bodies  of  men 
into  strange  paths,  and  so  creates  an  unwonted  need 
for  self-understanding.  At  the  same  time,  the 
power  and  the  leisure  for  self-understanding  are  di- 
minished. Men,  as  well  as  nations,  must  choose 
their  part  quickly,  discern  their  friends  and  their 
enemies,  revise  all  plans,  leap  to  strange  tasks  at 
the  call  of  the  moment,  though  all  the  questions  of 
politics  and  of  metaphysics  are  involved  in  the  deed. 
And  while  the  decision  reached  may  reveal  the 
solvency  or  insolvency  of  the  soul  that  issues  it,  the 
need  to  bring  together  the  fragments  of  one 's  mental 
life  remains,  and  will  remain  for  long  after  the  war 
is  past. 

This  book  is  an  attempt  to  help — the  soldier  first, 
and  also  the  civilian — in  this  task  of  understanding 
one's  own  mind,  under  the  special  stresses  of  war. 
There  must  be  many  such  attempts,  from  different 
angles  of  experience:  one  can  only  contribute  from 
his  own  angle,  that  of  the  student  of  human  nature 
and  of  philosophy,  aided  by  certain  special  oppor- 
tunities which  I  owe  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Foreign 
Offices  of  Great  Britain  and  France. 

The  summer  of  1917  I  spent  in  Europe.  On  the 
evening  of  the  eighth  of  August,  four  of  us,  under 
conduct  of  the  British  War  Office,  climbed  out  of 
Boulogne  in  army  motors,  and  made  our  way  across 

VII 


VIII  PREFACE 

the  country-side  of  Pas  de  Calais,  through  villages 
black  as  the  night  itself,  except  for  a  stealthy  chink 
of  light  here  and  there  in  the  crack  of  a  window, 
past  trains  of  loaded  lorries,  detachments  of  sol- 
diers and  workmen,  toward  the  front.  At  one  high 
point  of  the  road  with  a  clearing  toward  the  north^ 
and  east  we  saw  the  night  sky  broken  by  sudden 
flares  and  dangling  signal-lights  faint  in  the  dis- 
tance :  there  was  the  cockpit ;  there  the  man-power  of 
great  nations  was  straining  in  mud  and  rain  against 
all  the  devices  the  brain  of  a  cunning  enemy  could 
bring  to  crush  its  life  and  spirit  and  endurance. 
The  will-to-live  of  the  nations  was  in  those  tortured 
bodies.  If  there  were  any  super-men  in  the  world 
during  the  first  years  of  the  war,  they  were  not 
among  those  who  went  out  confident  in  all  the  freight 
of  German  war-lore  and  munitions,  but  among  those 
who  withstood  them. 

During  the  days  that  followed,  we  were  with  these 
men,  in  the  billets,  in  the  trenches  at  Croisilles,  at 
training  camp,  at  hospital.  From  Kemmel  Hill,  we 
followed  as  best  we  could,  their  deadly  labors  on  the 
earth  and  in  the  air,  in  the  region  of  ''"Wipers," 
Westhoek,  and  Messines.  Later  on,  with  another 
group,  we  met  poilus  of  France,  'at  home,'  if  you 
like,  in  their  own  war  zone,  in  the  devastated  regions 
about  Chauny,  in  the  active  sectors  about  Soissons 
and  the  Chemin  des  Dames.  They  were  all  men 
without  visible  haloes, — for  the  most  part  tired,  de- 
termined, matter-of-fact  men,  unconscious  of  either 
greatness  or  special  virtue  other  than  that  of  having 
chosen,  in  a  mortal  crisis,  as  men  must. 


PREFACE  IX 

Through  these  and  other  experiences  one  is  put 
on  his  guard  against  one  illusion  that  besets  the 
reading  of  the  mind  of  war,  the  inglorious  exterior  of 
its  often  glorious  inner  life.  It  is  not  alone  the  case 
that  in  war  the  pendulum  of  experience  swings  be- 
tween wide,  even  wild,  extremes ;  but  that  the  realism 
and  the  idealism  of  the  event  jostle  and  seem  to  belie 
one  another.  In  the  descriptive  literature  of  the  war 
we  have  vivid  human  documents  for  the  one  and  the 
other  side  of  the  picture ;  the  true  picture  must  in- 
clude them  both,  and  interpret  them. 

The  idealism  of  war  tends  to  concentrate  about  the 
notion  of  ''morale,"  a  highly  practical  and  specific 
virtue  for  the  purposes  of  war.  What  morale  means, 
the  invisible  force  behind  war-making,  became  an  al- 
most tangible  fact  at  the  front;  and  hardly  less  so 
in  the  regions  back  of  the  front,  in  the  towns  and  vil- 
lages, which  had  borne  a  load  of  suffering,  anxiety, 
and  loss  such  as  we  in  America  know  nothing  about. 

Morale  is  the  practical  virtue  of  the  will  to  war. 
But  if  we  know  how  to  build  the  morale  of  the  nation 
and  the  army  for  war  purposes,  we  shall  have  a 
spiritual  asset  lasting  well  into  the  times  after  the 
war.  The  esprit  de  corps  which  war  requires,  and 
helps  to  bring  about,  need  not  be  evanescent.  The 
military  virtues  have  traditionally  stood  by  them- 
selves, as  distinct  from  the  qualities  needed  in  times 
of  peace;  my  belief  is  that  this  is  a  short-sighted 
conception,  even  from  the  military  point  of  view, 
and  that  our  new  armies  made  on  a  different  prin- 
ciple will  demonstrate  that  fact. 


X  PREFACE 

And  there  is  a  wider  element  in  the  psyche  of  this 
war  which  must  not  be  evanescent,  and  cannot  be: 
I  mean  the  international  esprit  de  corps  which  has 
been  created  among  the  members  of  the  Allied  arms 
including  their  junior  associate,  the  discoveries  of 
people  by  people,  brought  about  by  the  forced  mental 
excursions  of  war. 

There  have  been  critics  of  England  among  us,  and 
critics  of  France ;  but  no  one  who  had  fairly  known 
the  England  or  the  France  that  bore  the  brunt  of 
the  war  could  have  continued  to  hold  these  feelings 
dominant.  England  is  inwardly  the  most  diverse  of 
all  nations :  it  is  not  identical  with  any  single  party 
or  government;  judged  by  the  acts  and  opinions 
of  fragments  here  and  there,  or  of  Parliaments  or  of 
cabinets,  it  is  not  faultless, — and  I  know  of  no  nation 
that  is.  But  the  phrases,  ''the  heart  of  England," 
or  "the  soul  of  France,"  are  not  empty  phrases:  it 
is  by  the  quality  of  its  persistent  national  purposes 
that  a  people  is  to  be  judged. 

There  are  traits  in  the  England  of  John  Bull  and 
Tory  tradition,  just  as  there  are  in  the  America  of 
dollar-worshipping  tradition,  which  have  few  lovers 
in  the  world,  and  deserve  few.  But  this  is  not 
America;  nor  are  these  England.  There  is  a  con- 
siderate and  liberal  England,  an  England  that 
sweareth  to  its  own  hurt  and  changeth  not,  a  chival- 
rous England,  a  nobly  generous  England,  eager  to 
give  in  all  ways  more  than  due  credit  to  its  associates 
and  neighbors.  These  are  the  real  England.  Let  me 
quote  here  a  few  words  from  a  letter  that  came  to 
me  recently: 

"And  before  anything  else.  I  must  express  to  you 


PREFACE  XI 

my  intense  thankfulness  for  the  wonderful  support 
and  defence  which  your  great  country  has  offered 
to  the  allied  cause  and  to  England.  The  last  week 
of  March  was  very  anxious;  I  hardly  knew  at  the 
time,  how  anxious.  I  don't  say  we  might  not  have 
pulled  through  unaided,  but  the  certainty  and  rap- 
idity of  the  relief  were  unquestionably  due  to  you. 
I  do  not  ignore  the  universality  of  your  motive — 
to  do  right  .  .  .  but  still,  the  greater  involves  the 
less,  and  we  do  owe  you  a  debt  which  you  could  not 
realize,  without  having  shared  those  black  weeks 
with  us.  What  you  did  will  never  be  forgotten  while 
England  is  a  people. 

*'By  comparison  it  is  a  minor  matter,  and  almost 
humorous  after  my  writing  to  you  last  year  about 
our  self  denial,  that  my  having  had  plenty  of  wheat 
bread  this  last  six  months  is  due,  I  gather,  to  your 
having  denied  it  to  yourself.  The  whole  thing  is 
wonderful,  and  I  should  think,  unprecedented  in  the 
world's  history." 

Think  of  these  as  words  on  the  lips  of  England, 
and  think  of  what  England,  her  provinces,  and  her 
allies,  have  sacrificed  in  this  cause  which  from  the 
first  was  ours.  What  have  we  done  that  we  should 
not  proudly  have  done  again  and  again?  Let  it 
stand  as  a  unique  fact,  if  it  is  such;  but  only  as 
beginnings  are  unique.  Let  it,  together  with  the 
spirit  that  answers  it,  put  an  end  forever  to  the 
superstition  that  nations,  as  corporate  entities,  are 
debarred  from  the  expressions  of  good-will  and 
gratitude  that  cement  the  bonds  between  man  and 
man.  William  Ernest  Hocking. 

"New  York  City,  November  6,  1918. 


NOTE  OF  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Some  of  the  substance  of  this  book  has  already 
been  presented  in  the  form  of  lectures  to  the  Train- 
ing Corps  at  Williams  College  in  the  winter  of  1917, 
and  as  the  Bromley  Lectures  at  Yale  in  the  spring 
of  1918.  I  also  presented  for  preliminary  criticism 
by  the  service  a  set  of  psychological  theses  in  The 
Infantry  Journal  for  April,  1918 ;  in  the  second  part 
of  this  book  I  have  profited  by  the  comment  that  has 
come  to  me.  Three  of  the  chapters  have  appeared 
in  approximately  their  present  form:  the  first  and 
second  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  current,  the  fifteenth 
in  the  Yale  Review  for  July  1918, 


CONTENTS 

PART  I— FOUNDATIONS  OF  MORALE 

CBAPTKR  PAGB 

I.       WHY  MORALE  COUNTS,  AND  HOW  MUCH    .        .  3 

II.       WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MOBALE  ? 14 

III.  THE    FOUNDATIONS     OF     MORALE:     INSTINCTS 

AND   FEELINGS 24 

IV.  THE   FOUNDATIONS   OF    MORALE:    KNOWLEDGE 

I                    AND  BELIEF 33 

*»V.      REALIZING    THE    WAR 42 

VI.      ENMITY  AND  THE  ENEMY 53 

VII.      THE   PURPOSES   OF    POTSDAM 61 

VIII.      THE  MOTE  IN   OUR  OWN  EYE 67 

IX.      STATE-BLINDNESS 78 


PART  II— MORALE  OF  THE  FIGHTING 
MAN 

X.      PSYCHOLOGY   OF  THE  SOLDIER    ....  95 

XI.      DISCIPLINE    AND    WILL     ....              .        .  118 

XII.      PRESTIGE:   THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   COMMAND    .  131 

XIII.       MORALE-BUILDING    FACTORS 142 

XIV.       FEAR    AND    ITS    CONTROL 153 

XV.       WAR  AND  WOMEN 168 

XVI.      LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAB 189 

XV 


PART  I 
FOUNDATIONS  OF  MORALE 


MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 


CHAPTER  I 

WHY   MORALE   COUNTS,   AND   HOW   MUCH 

War  is  no  doubt  the  least  human  of  human  relation- 
ships. It  can  begin  only  when  persuasion  ends, 
when  arguments  fitted  to  move  minds  are  replaced 
by  the  blasting-powder  fitted  to  move  rocks  and 
hills.  It  means  that  one  at  least  of  the  national 
wills  concerned  has  deliberately  set  aside  its  hu- 
man quality, — as  only  a  human  will  can  do, — and 
has  made  of  itself  just  such  a  material  obstruction 
or  menace.  Hence  war  seems,  and  is  often  called, 
a  contest  of  brute  forces.  Certainly,  it  is  the  ex- 
tremest  physical  effort  men  make,  every  resource 
of  vast  populations  bent  to  increase  the  sum  of 
power  at  the  front,  where  the  two  lines  writhe  like 
wrestlers  laboring  for  the  final  fall. 

Yet  it  is  seldom  physical  force  that  decides  a  long 
war.  For  war  summons  skill  against  skill,  head 
against  head,  staying-power  against  staying-power, 
as  well  as  numbers  and  machines  against  machines 
and  numbers.  When  an  engine  ''exerts  itself"  it 
spends  more  power,  eats  more  fuel,  but  uses  no 
nerve:  when  a  man  exerts  himself,  he  must  bend 
his  will  to  it.   The  extremer  the  physical  effort,  the 

3 


4  MORALE   AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

greater  the  strain  on  the  inner  or  moral  powers. 
Hence  the  paradox  of  war:  just  because  it  calls 
for  the  maximum  material  performance,  it  calls 
out  a  maximum  of  moral  resource.  As  long  as  guns 
and  bayonets  have  men  behind  them,  the  quality  of 
the  men,  the  quality  of  their  minds  and  wills,  must 
be  counted  wdth  the  power  of  the  weapons. 

And  as  long  as  men  fight  in  nations  and  armies, 
that  subtle  but  mighty  influence  that  passes  from 
man  to  man,  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  group, 
must  be  counted  with  the  quality  of  the  individual 
citizen  and  soldier.  E^^ery  racial  group,  every  army 
corps,  every  regiment,  has  its  ovm.  distinctive  men- 
tality with  ^vhich  it  endows  its  members,  and  for 
which  it  becomes  reputed.  And  every  commander 
accordingly  seeks  to  know  not  alone  w^hat  numbers 
are  against  him,  but  who  they  are.  In  a  paper  just 
now  before  me  I  see  these  words ; 

*'0n  one  occasion  prior  to  an  attack,  an  intelli- 
gence officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  interrogate  pris- 
oners gleefully  remarked  to  me:  'I've  had  very 
good  news;  the  regiments  in  front  of  our  new  line 
are  Saxons  and  Bavarians.'  These  soldiers  ad- 
mittedly do  not  fight  as  well  as  the  Prussians." 

And  in  another  paragraph: 

**It  was  said  of  a  certain  foreign  contingent  Tvhom 
a  Hun  officer  had  captured  that  he  sent  them  back 
to  their  own  line  mth  the  remark,  'We  can  take  you 
again  at  any  time ;  we  have  enough  mouths  to  feed 
already,' — so  little  did  he  think  of  their  fighting 
qualities. ' ' 


WHY  MORAliE   COUNTS,   AND   HOW   MUCH  5 

The  story  need  not  be  taken  as  history;  yet  it  is 
hardly  too  extreme. 

And  as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  our  own  troops, 
every  group  of  soldiers  is  an  unknown  quantity 
until  it  has  been  tried  out.  We  had  no  doubt  that 
American  soldiers  would  acquit  themselves  well; 
but  who  is  there  that  did  not  follow  the  early  re- 
ports with  a  tense  interest  to  know  how  well!  What 
could  the  great  business-loving  republic  do  toward 
producing  a  fighting  morale? — that  was  the  ques- 
tion. "We  were  aware  that  mentality  as  well  as 
armament  is  a  factor  in  warfare. 

But  how  much  does  this  intangible,  psychological 
factor  count?  Napoleon  in  his  day  reckoned  it 
high :  ' '  In  war,  the  moral  is  to  the  physical  as  three 
to  one."  But  things  have  changed  since  Napoleon's 
day.  Then  there  was  still  a  personal  element  in  the 
encounter  of  battle;  there  was  still  some  truth  in 
the  Roman  maxim,  *'In  battle  it  is  the  eyes  that  are 
first  conquered."  Now  one  may  spend  weeks  of 
fighting  and  never  seen  an  enemy— much  less  seen  the 
soul  driven  from  his  eyes.  Yet  there  are  reasons 
for  believing  that  the  moral  factor  is  not  less  im- 
portant to-day  than  heretofore.    For  consider: 

1.  It  is  still  the  hand-to-hand  fighting,  especially 
the  bayonet  work,  that  constitutes  the  last  argument 
of  every  engagement. 

"Down  the  ages,  from  the  prehistoric  spearman, 
through    the    times    of    the    Macedonian    phalanx, 


b  MORALE   AND    ITS   ENEMIES 

the  pikeman,  and  the  halberdier,  on  to  the  present 
day,  the  spear  has  been  the  deciding  factor  of  many 
battles.  And  what  is  the  bayonet  but  the  spear  of 
ancient  days?  At  the  final  stage,  the  battle  of 
to-day  is  as  the  battle  of  long  ago :  only  the  prelimi- 
naries are  different.  And  of  what  use  the  best  artil- 
lery preparation,  of  what  avail  the  fire-supremacy 
of  the  finest  troops,  if  the  bayonet  does  not  follow 
them  up  to  make  good  the  advantage  they  have 
gained?"* 

2.  The  quality  of  combat  is  none  the  less  per- 
sonal because  one  cannot  see  the  opponent.  The 
human  face  is  but  an  organ  of  expression  which 
we  have  to  learn  to  read;  and  any  physical  thing 
that  can  show  shades  of  temper  is  capable  of  being 
read  like  a  face.  Thus  one  learns  to  read  firing  as 
one  learns  to  know  the  calibers  of  shells  by  their 
whine.  There  is  desultory  firing,  determined  firing, 
enraged  firing,  nervous  firing,  timid  firing,  and 
many  another  variety.  In  this  and  a  hundred  other 
ways,  battle  always  has  its  face,  whether  or  not  it  is 
a  human  face ;  and  experienced  men  feel  as  directly 
when  that  opposing  eye  is  conquering  or  being  con- 
quered. 

3.  Perhaps  because  of  the  longer  intervals  of 
waiting  and  tension,  the  spirit  of  the  various  units 
seems  sensitive  as  never  before  to  a  thousand  shades 
of  feeling,  sensitive  as  a  stock-market  to  the  rise  and 
fall  of  confidence  and  good-mil.  Every  token  from 
outside,  especially  the  orders  and  their  bearers,  are 

•Lieut.  Col.  Paul  H.  McCook,  in  The  Infantry  Journcl,  April,  1018, 
page  780. 


WHY  MORALE   COUNTS,  AND  HOW  MUCH  7 

scanned,  perhaps  subconsciously,  for  the  straws 
that  show  what  wind  is  blowing.  If  the  officer's 
stout  words  come  from  an  apprehensive  mind,  he 
will  hardly  conceal  the  fact;  and  what  is  outwardly 
accepted  will  leave  an  emptiness,  like  his  own,  in 
the  hearts  of  his  hearers.  The  fighting  spirit,  farther 
from  pure  instinct  than  in  former  days,  is  by  so 
much  more  canny,  sensitive,  and  shrewd. 

4.  The  strains  of  war  on  nerve  and  courage  are 
not  less  but  more  severe  than  in  previous  wars.  To 
take  but  a  single  indication,  the  prevalence  of  * '  shell- 
shock"  means  not  that  human  quality  has  declined, 
but  that  it  can  deliberately  expose  itself  to  more 
inhuman  and  longer  suifering  than  men  have  ever 
before  in  large  numbers  been  called  on  to  endure. 

5.  And  in  one  way  at  least  these  mental  factors 
are  far  more  weighty  than  in  Napoleon's  day.  For 
behind  the  army  lies  the  nation;  and  the  whole  un- 
wieldy mass,  army  and  nation,  is  much  more  a 
mental  unit  than  in  any  previous  war,  each  de- 
pendent on  the  courage  and  good-will  of  the  other. 
"VVTien  armies  were  smaller,  it  was  not  so  serious  a 
matter  if  any  portion  of  the  civil  population  were 
disaffected.  But  now,  communication  is  prompt; 
and  the  communication  of  temper  is  far  prompter 
than  the  communication  of  fact.  It  is  not  beyond 
credence  that  a  strike  of  coal-workers  in  Pennsyl- 
vania might  on  the  next  day  lose  a  battle  in  Flan- 
ders. Men  in  the  field  are  able  to  know^  vastly  more 
of  the  fortunes  of  their  families  than  ever  before 


8  MOEALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

in  war;  and  perhaps  for  this  reason  the  minor 
troubles  and  joys  of  civilian  life  loom  larger  on  the 
firing-line.  The  entire  population  behind  the  fight- 
ers becomes  a  part  of  the  fighting  state  of  mind; 
and  all  shades  of  depression  and  elation  pass  with 
the  speed  of  wireless  messages  from  center  to  fight- 
ing frontier,  and  back  again. 

In  no  war,  I  judge,  has  the  human  quality  counted 
for  so  much: — the  endurance,  the  initiative,  the 
power  of  sacrifice,  the  loyalty,  the  ability  to  subor- 
dinate personal  interest  and  pride,  the  power  of 
taking  the  measure  of  the  event,  of  discounting  the 
unfavorable  turn,  of  responding  to  frightfulness 
with  redoubled  resolution  rather  than  with  fear, 
of  appreciating  the  real  emergency  and  rising  in- 
stantly to  meet  it.  It  is  these  qualities  of  mind  and 
character  which  in  the  ensemble  go  by  the  name  of 
"morale" ;  and  it  is  these  qualities  that  hold  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  war. 

For  war,  completely  seen,  is  no  mere  collision  of 
physical  forces :  it  is  a  collision  of  will  against  will. 
It  is,  after  all,  the  mind  and  will  of  a  nation — a 
thing  intangible  and  invisible — that  assembles  the 
materials  of  war,  the  fighting  forces,  the  ordnance, 
the  whole  physical  array.  It  is  this  invisible  thing 
that  wages  the  war;  it  is  this  same  invisible  thing 
that  on  one  side  or  other  must  admit  the  finish  and 
so  end  it.  As  things  are  now,  it  is  the  element  of 
"morale"  that  controls  the  outcome. 


WHY  MORALE  COUNTS,  AND  HOW   MUCH  9 

I  say,  as  things  are  now;  for  it  is  certainly  not 
true  as  a  rule  of  history  that  will-power  is  enough 
to  win  a  war,  even  when  supported  by  high  fighting 
spirit,  brains,  and  a  good  conscience.  Belgium  had 
all  this,  and  yet  was  bound  to  fall  before  Germany 
had  she  stood  alone.  Her  spirit  worked  miracles  at 
Liege,  delayed  by  ten  days  the  marching  program 
of  the  German  armies,  and  thereby  saved — perhaps 
Paris,  perhaps  Europe.  But  the  day  was  saved  be- 
cause the  issue  raised  in  Serbia  and  in  Belgium  drew 
to  their  side  material  support  until  their  force* 
could  compare  with  the  physical  advantages  of  the 
enemy.  Morale  wins,  not  by  itself,  but  hy  turning 
scales:  it  has  a  value  like  the  power  of  a  minority 
or  of  a  mobile  reserve.  It  adds  to  one  side  or  the 
other  the  last  ounce  of  force  which  is  to  its  oppo- 
nent the  last  straw  that  breaks  its  back. 

Differences  in  morale,  however,  are  cumulative. 
Psychologically,  as  applied  to  armies,  there  is  an 
obvious  rough  truth  in  the  adage  that  nothing  suc- 
ceeds like  success.  Depression,  on  the  other  hand, 
relaxes  the  grip,  and  so  begets  failure  and  further 
depression ; — fear  reduces  control  and  tends  to  grow 
toward  panic.  Where  such  gigantic  numbers  are 
engaged  it  is  more  nearly  true  than  ever  that  an 
army  which  does  not  know  itseK  beaten  is  not 
beaten :  a  decisive  victory  in  the  field  will  probably 
be  preceded  by  a  victory  over  morale.  A  general 
crumbling  of  confidence  among  the  vanquished  will 
usher  in  the  debacle. 


10  MORALE   AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

I  do  not  wish  to  convey  the  impression  that  the 
advantages  in  morale  are  all  on  our  side.  Morale 
is  not  identical  with  the  morals  of  the  case.  Confi- 
dence, determination,  endurance,  and  discipline  may 
exist  in  a  perfectly  bad  cause:  for  four  years  all 
these  qualities  were  present  in  the  Austro-German 
command.  The  professional  status  of  their  armies, 
their  knowledge  of  their  own  power,  their  early  suc- 
cesses in  carrying  the  fighting  into  the  countries  of 
their  victims, — all  these  were  heavy  assets,  mental 
assets,  whose  value  has  not  wholly  vanished.  The 
oflQcers  of  the  British  and  American  armies,  taken 
in  the  large,  are  relatively  new  to  their  work:  for 
some  time  they  must  be  reckoned  in  the  amateur 
class  in  comparison  with  the  long-trained  minds  and 
bodies  of  the  enemy.  And  this  is  a  circumstance 
which  makes  itself  felt  all  the  way  to  the  rank  and 
file :  for  ability  to  rely  on  the  experience  as  well  as 
the  sagacity  of  the  officer  is  one  of  the  prime  ele- 
ments in  the  morale  of  private  soldiers.  We  have 
advantages  of  our  own;  we  need  not  belittle  those 
of  the  enemy. 

The  building-materials  of  morale  must  be  taken 
from  the  general  qualities  of  the  will  of  a  people, — 
its  virility,  its  integrity,  its  spiritedness,  its  endur- 
ance ;  and  among  these  qualities  justice  is  not  least 
in  weight.  But  given  the  materials,  morale  itself — 
a  virtue  for  the  occasion — requires  building:  it  can- 
not be  simply  distilled  from  the  atmosphere. 

We  see,  then,  why  it  is  that  after  providing  for 


WHY  MORALE   COUNTS,  AND   HOW   MUCH  11 

the  number  of  fighters  and  their  equipment  there 
still  remains  a  great  question,  How  much  fight  is 
there  in  each  one  and  in  the  mass  ?  And  we  see  that 
there  are  always  two  ways  to  increase  our  fighting 
strength :  by  increasing  the  number  of  our  units,  or 
by  increasing  the  fighting  power  of  each  unit.  What- 
ever could  double  the  morale  of  a  million  men, — if 
that  were  possible, — would  add  the  equivalent  of  a 
million  such  men  to  the  force. 

And  the  thing  is  not  impossible.  For  the  amount 
of  fight  per  man  can  vary  through  a  far  wider 
range  than  the  Napoleonic  ratio  of  three  to  one. 
This  is  true  even  of  the  minor  ups  and  downs  of  the 
daily  rhythm.  Ten  men  at  their  top  notch  of  con- 
dition might  easily  handle  a  hundred  similar  men 
at  their  ebb  of  hunger,  pain,  and  fatigue.  And 
there  are  other  variable  elements  that  count  quite 
as  much,  such  as  buoyancy  and  humor.  Humor  is 
a  symptom  of  margin:  a  man  who  has  it  can  do 
more  than  fight  when  he  is  fighting, — he  can  look 
about  and  find  a  trick  to  spring,  with  the  result  that 
we  have  sergeants  who  with  a  handful  of  men  bring 
in  a  battalion  of  prisoners.  Or  he  can  make  the 
passing  misery  dwindle  in  magnitude  for  an  entire 
company,  as  w4th  the  Irish  corporal  in  the  Philip- 
pines, who,  as  General  Shanks  narrates,  after  a  hot 
day's  marching  and  a  loss  of  the  trail,  was  sent  to 
the  top  of  a  ridge  to  reconnoitre.  When  a  comrade 
called  up,  ''I  say,  Shorty,  is  this  the  last  hilU"  he 


12  MORALE   AND   ITS   ENEMIES 

shouted  back,  **  Yes,  the  last  hill  it  is : — the  next  one 
is  a  mountain."* 

*The  following'  episode  of  the  great  retreat  in  the  Fall  of  1014 
is  one  of  a  thousand  instances  of  a  trait  of  the  British  Tommy  with 
which  the  war  has  made  us  familiar, — he  is  never  quite  "all  in"  so 
long  as  it  is  possible  to  find  a  comical  angle  in  the  situation,  or 
rather,  a  comical  route  to  its  underlying  philosophy: 

Major  Tom  Bridges,  of  the  4th  Dragoon  Guards,  had  been  sent 
into  St.  Quentin  on  Friday  afternoon  to  see  if  more  stragglers 
could  be  found.  In  the  square  near  the  Slairie  he  found  a  couple  of 
hundred  or  more  men  of  various  detachments,  who  were  seated  on 
the  pavement  in  complete  exhaustion  and  utter  resignation  to  what 
appeared  their  inability  to  rejoin  the  army  which  had  retreated  far 
to  the  southward.  .  .  .  Bridges  needed  but  a  moment  to  see  how 
far  gone  they  were,  how  utterly  and  hopelessly  fatigued.  No  per- 
emptory order,  no  gentle  request,  no  clever  cajolery  would  suffice. 
With  most  of  them  the  power  to  move  seemed  to  themselves  to  have 
gone  with  ceaseless  tramping  without  food  or  sleep  for  the  thirty- 
six  hours  past. 

A  brilliant  idea  came  to  the  big  genial  major.  Entering  a  toy 
shop  he  bought  a  toy  drum  and  a  penny  whistle.  He  strapped  the 
little  drum  to  his  belt. 

"Can  you  play  'The  British  Grenadiers'?"  he  asked  his  trumpeter. 

"Sure,  sir,"  was  the  reply. 

In   a   twinkling   the   pair  were   marching   round   the   square,   the 
high  treble  of  the  tiny  toy  whistle  rising  clear  and  shrill: 
But   of   all   the  world's   brave  heroes 
There's  none  that  can  compare 
With  a  totv,  row,  row, 
With  a   tow,  roio,  row. 
To  the  British  Grenadiers. 

Round  they  came,  the  trumpeter,  caught  on  the  wings  of  the 
Major's  enthusiasm,  putting  his  very  heart  and  soul  into  every 
inspiring  note.  Bridges,  supplying  the  comic  relief  with  the  small 
sticks  in  his  big  hands,  banged  away  on  tiie  drum  like  mad. 

The}^  reached  tlie  recumbent  group.  They  passed  its  tired  length. 
Now  they  came  to  the  last  man.  Will  they  feel  the  spirit  of  the 
straining  notes,  rich  with  the  tradition  of  tlie  grand  old  air?  Will 
they  catch  the  spirit  of  the  big-hearted  Major,  who  knows  so  well 
just  how  the  poor  lads  feel,  and  seeks  that  spot  of  humour  in 
Tommy's  make-up  that  has  so  often  proved  his  very  salvation? 

Tlie  spark  has  caught!  Some  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  some  with 
a  roar  of  laughter,  jump  to  tlieir  feet  and  fall  in.  Stiffened  limbs 
answer  to  call  of  newly  awakened  wills.  "With  a  tow,  row,  row,  to 
the  British  Grenadiers."  They  are  singing  it  now,  as  they  file  in 
long  column  down  the  street  after  the  big  form  hammering  the  toy 
drum,   and   his   pantinjx  trumpeter. 

"Go  on,  Colonel.  Well  follow  you  to  hell,"  sings  out  a  brawny 
Irishman   behind,  who  can   just  hobble  along  on   his   torn   feet. 

Never  a  man  of  all  the  lot  was  left  behind. — Frederic  Coleman, 
From  Mons  to  Yprcs,  page  65. 


WHY  MORALE  COUNTS,  AND  HOW   MUCH  13 

But  beneath  these  minor  variations  are  the  funda- 
mental differences  in  the  set  of  the  will,  the  long- 
time qualities  that  make  the  tenacious  and  unde- 
featable  fighting  man  or  the  reverse. 

The  most  important  distinction  affecting  morale 
among  our  people,  in  or  out  of  the  army,  is  not  that 
between  the  loyal  and  disloyal,  but  that  between  the 
whole-hearted  and  the  half-hearted  or  three-quar- 
ters-hearted,— those  who  are  in  the  war,  but  with 
reservations  conscious  or  unconscious,  with  insuffi- 
cient, cloudy,  dazed,  or  socially-fabricated  motive 
power,  not  enough  to  carry  them  well  over  the 
threshold  into  the  new  and  harsher  outlook  on  their 
own  fortunes  and  personalities  that  war  requires, 
somewhere  shrinking  and  unreconciled, — in  brief, 
with  inadequate  foundation  for  the  lasting  elements 
of  morale.  It  is  this  foundation  that  we  have  es- 
pecial need  to  understand. 


CHAPTER  II 

WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MORALE? 

Perhaps  the  simplest  way  of  explaining  the  mean- 
ing of  morale  is  to  say  that  what  ''condition"  is  to 
the  athlete's  body,  morale  is  to  the  mind.  Morale 
is  condition;  good  morale  is  good  condition  of  the 
inner  man:  it  is  the  state  of  will  in  which  you  can 
get  most  from  the  machinery,  deliver  blows  with 
the  greatest  effect,  take  blows  with  the  least  de- 
pression, and  hold  out  for  the  longest  time.  It  is 
both  fighting-power  and  staying-power  and  strength 
to  resist  the  mental  infections  which  fear,  discour- 
agement, and  fatigue  bring  with  them,  such  as 
eagerness  for  any  kind  of  peace  if  only  it  gives  mo- 
mentary relief,  or  the  irritability  that  sees  large 
the  defects  in  one's  own  side  until  they  seem  more 
important  than  the  need  of  defeating  the  enemy. 
And  it  is  the  perpetual  ability  to  come  back. 

From  this  it  follows  that  good  morale  is  not  the 
same  as  good  spirits  or  enthusiasm.  It  is  anything 
but  the  cheerful  optimism  of  early  morning,  or  the 
tendency  to  be  jubilant  at  every  victory.  It  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  emotionalism  dwelt  on 
by  psychologists  of  the  ** crowd."  It  is  hardly  to  be 
discovered  in  the  early  stages  of  war.     Its  most 

14 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MOBALE  ?  15 

searching  test  is  found  in  the  question,  How  does 
war-weariness  affect  you? 

No  one  going  from  America  to  Europe  in  the  last 
year  could  fail  to  notice  the  wide  difference  between 
the  mind  of  nations  long  at  war  and  that  of  a  nation 
just  entering.  Over  there,  ''crowd  psychology" 
had  spent  itself.  There  was  little  flag-waving;  the 
common  purveyors  of  music  were  not  every^vherc 
playing  (or  allowed  to  play)  the  national  airs.  If 
in  some  Parisian  cinema  the  Marseillaise  was  given, 
nobody  stood  or  sang.  The  reports  of  atrocities 
roused  little  visible  anger  or  even  talk, — they  were 
taken  for  granted.  In  short,  the  simpler  emotions 
had  been  worn  out, — or  rather,  had  resolved  them 
selves  into  clear  connections  between  knowledge  and 
action.  The  people  had  found  the  mental  gait  that 
can  be  held  indefinitely.  Even  a  great  advance  finds 
them  on  their  guard  against  too  much  joy.  As  the 
news  from  the  second  victory  of  the  Marne  begins 
to  come  in,  we  find  this  despatch: 

"Paris  refrains  from  exultation." 

And  in  the  trenches  the  same  is  true  in  even 
greater  degree.  All  the  bravado  and  illusion  of  war 
are  gone,  also  all  the  nervous  revulsion ;  and  in  their 
places  a  grimly  reliable  resource  of  energy  held  in 
instant,  almost  mechanical  readiness  to  do  what  is 
necessary.  The  hazards  which  it  is  useless  to  spec- 
ulate about,  the  miseries,  delays,  tediums,  casualties, 
have  lost  their  exclamatory  value  and  have  fallen 
into  the  sullen  routine  of  the  day's  work.    Here  it  is 


16  MORAX,E  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

that  morale  begins  to  show  in  its  more  vital  dimen- 
sions. Here  the  substantial  differences  between  man 
and  man,  and  between  side  and  side,  begin  to  appear 
as  they  can  never  appear  in  training  camp. 

Fitness  and  readiness  to  act,  the  positive  element 
in  morale,  is  a  matter  not  of  good  and  bad  alone, 
but  of  degree.  Persistence,  courage,  energy,  initia- 
tive, may  vary  from  zero  upward  mthout  limit. 
Perhaps  the  most  important  dividing  line — one  that 
has  already  shown  itself  at  various  critical  points — 
is  that  between  the  willingness  to  defend  and  the 
willingness  to  attack,  between  the  defensive  and  the 
aggressive  mentality.  It  is  the  difference  between 
docility  and  enterprise,  between  a  faith  at  second 
hand  dependent  on  neighbor  or  leader,  and  a  faith 
at  first  hand  capable  of  assuming  for  itself  the  posi- 
tion of  leadership. 

In  any  large  group  of  men  there  is  bound  to  be 
a  certain  amount  of  psychological  * '  filling, ' '  i.  e., 
minds  that  go  on  momentum  and  suggestion  rather 
than  on  conviction  of  their  own.  There  are  men 
who  find  themselves  in  the  army  through  a  series 
of  events  of  which  they  have  had  no  control,  and 
who  go  on  because  they  cannot  go  back.  In  all 
armies  of  the  old  regime  much  depended  on  this 
principle:  "Get  men  into  it  anyhow,  circumstances 
will  keep  them  there,  and  self-preservative  impulses 
will  make  them  fight. ' '  There  is  a  degree  of  human 
nature  in  this :  men  can  be  counted  on  to  exert  them- 
selves mightily  to  get  out  of  a  mortal  scrape,  no 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MORALE  ?  17 

matter  what  got  them  into  it.  But  such  spirit  is 
visibly  poor  stuff  to  make  war  with,  liable  to  panic, 
unable  to  replace  lost  leaders,  wholly  undemocratic 
in  principle,  and  the  less  of  it  we  have  in  either  army 
or  nation,  the  better.  The  morale  that  counts  is  the 
morale  that  would  make  war  of  itself  alone  and 
therefore  tugs  at  the  leash. 

But  readiness  to  wait,  the  negative  element  in 
morale,  is  as  important  as  readiness  to  act,  and 
oftentimes  it  is  a  harder  virtue.  Patience,  espe- 
cially under  conditions  of  ignorance  of  what  may  be 
brewing,  is  a  torment  for  active  and  critical  minds 
such  as  this  people  is  made  of.  Yet  impetuosity, 
exceeding  of  orders,  unwillingness  to  retreat  when 
the  general  situation  demands  it,  are  signs  not  of 
good  morale  but  the  reverse.  They  are  signs  that 
one's  heart  cannot  be  kept  up  except  by  the  flatter- 
ing stimulus  of  always  going  forward, — a  state  of 
mind  that  may  cause  a  commanding  officer  serious 
embarrassment,  even  to  making  impossible  decisive 
strokes  of  strategy.* 

The  quality  of  morale  is  not  capable  of  being 
tested  by  the  methods  of  the  psychological  labora- 
tory.    There  are  many  mental  tests  which  can  be 

•During  the  retreat  to  the  Marne  in  the  Fall  of  1914,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  all  parts  of  the  line  should  move  back  together.  It  would 
have  played  well  into  the  German  plan  for  any  fragment  of  the 
line  to  hold  a  local  advantage,  lose  contact  with  units  on  its  flank, 
and  so  make  an  opportunity  of  the  sort  which  was  later  used  so 
brilliantly  against  themselves.  The  feeling  of  British  soldiers  here 
and  there  toward  the  necessity  of  retreat  is  thus  described  by  Wil- 
son McNair: 

"How  our  men  hated  this  retreating!  Again  and  again  I  heard 
from  their  lips  angry  and  amazed  comments  upon  the  action  of  their 
leaders.     The  men  seemed  to  feel  that  they  had  a  special  grievance 


18  MORAIiE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

used,  and  are  used,  to  distinguish  the  promising 
soldier  from  the  unpromising,  but  the  critical  ele- 
ments of  morale  elude  them.  The  difference  be- 
tween one  man  and  another  is  largely  a  differen 
in  staying-power:  staying-power  cannot  be  tested  in 
the  laboratory,  except  in  minor  ways.  The  whole 
outcome  of  a  battle  or  of  a  campaign  may  depend 
on  what  a  few  men  will  do  when  their  "backs  are 
to  the  wall":  but  the  situation  of  being  at  bay  can- 
not be  reproduced  in  the  testing-room  in  any  serious 
way.  Still  more  elusive  is  the  power  men  have  of 
taking  fire  under  the  influence  of  strong  leaders: 
any  man's  worth  may  be  multiplied  tenfold  under 
the  magic  of  great  leadership.  But  no  investigation 
of  the  solitary  human  being  under  the  highly  un- 
inspiring environment  of  the  testing-room  could 
detect  the  degree  of  his  kindling  capacity. 

Yet  the  quality  of  morale  is  something  that  can 
be  instantly  felt  by  anyone  who  knows  its  signs, 
large  and  small.  How  does  a  platoon  react  to  an 
extra  detail,  or  a  battalion  to  an  unexplained  delay 
in  relief?  How  does  a  people  respond  to  the  hun- 
dred exceptional  demands  of  w^ar  time?  Their 
temper  may  be  seen  in  the  speed  of  volunteering,  in 
the  way  they  accept  the  harder  requirement — the 
draft,  in  the  taking  of  bonds  and  the  payment  of 

against  leaxiers  who,  each  time  they  'won  a  battle'  ordered  them  to 
run  away.  But  with  characteristic  esprit  de  corps  they  blamed  the 
French  commanders  rather  than  their  own.  It  was  a  French  idea, 
this  retreating,  they  said,  and  it  was  a  d — d  bad  idea.  Tlieir  opinion 
of  the  French  commanders  went  down  to  zero  during  those  days, 
even  as  it  was  to  leap  up  again  in  the  great  days  after  the  battle  of 
the  Marne." — Blood  and  Iron,  page  194. 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MORALE?  19 

extra  taxea,  in  the  result  of  appeals  for  voluntary 
self-restraint  in  small  comforts,  in  the  disposition  to 
overcome  internal  disagreements,  in  the  sale  of 
news,  the  attitude  toward  hindrances  in  the  path  of 
war  work,  the  pressure  for  results  upon  the  men  in 
office,  and  not  least  in  significance,  the  clear-headed 
fairness  of  judgment  toward  these  men,  and  the 
readiness  to  make  allowances  for  mistake  in  situa- 
tions where  no  human  foresight  can  wholly  avoid 
error. 

But  there  are  slighter  signs  that  tell  as  large  n 
story.  They  are  the  signs  of  sentiment,  or  the  kind 
of  response  that  is  made  to  an  occasion  when  the 
sources  of  feeling  are  tapped.  That  was  a  shrewd 
method  of  the  German  agents  in  Alsace  who,  to 
test  the  loyalty  of  doubtful  citizens  during  the  early 
months  of  the  war,  went  about  asking  them  what 
they  thought  of  the  ''glorious  victories."  Enthu- 
siasm or  the  want  of  it  might  tell  the  tale  that  pru- 
dent lips  kept  concealed.  The  moments  of  the  ex- 
pression of  sentiment  are  the  most  vulnerable  mo- 
ments for  any  leader.  They  either  carry  or  alienate 
the  people,  and  if  the  morale  is  at  low  ebb  it  is  at 
these  points  that  disturbance  is  most  likely  to  take 
place,  just  as  the  unpopular  actor  is  in  most  danger 
of  being  hooted  at  the  moment  of  his  would-be- 
affecting  passage.  Of  the  temper  of  Russia,  we 
are  told  that  ''The  Bolshevists  no  longer  dare  to 
arrange  demonstrations  of  their  own."  In  some  of 
the   invaded   districts,    the    German    officers   exact 


20  MOBALB  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

salutes  from  the  men, — and  also  from  the  women:* 
it  has  been  reported  that  they  exact  also  that 
these  salutes  shall  be  given  with  deference  anc' 
alacrity.  Why  with ''deference  and  alacrity"?  Be- 
cause these  are  the  signs  of  morale.  The  spirit 
speaks  more  in  the  manner  of  the  salute  than  in  the 
fact;  and  these  officers  seem  to  believe  that  in  com- 
manding the  manner  they  succeed  in  some  violent 
way  in  forcing  the  soul.  And  no  doubt  they  suc- 
ceed in  torturing  the  soul  in  that  way,  because  in 
any  act  done  under  command  the  manner  of  doing  it 
is  the  natural  refuge  of  freedom.  Morale  is  seen 
in  the  spirit  which  is  put  into  obedience,  the  evident 
free  will  with  which  one  adds  the  touch  of  briskness 
and  grace  to  what  is  required  of  him. 

In  this  way,  even  the  rigidity  of  army  life  may 
become  the  frame  for  the  visible  liberty  of  freedom- 
loving  men.  However  far  the  orders  go,  there  is 
always  the  last  touch  that  cannot  be  commanded, 
but  can  only  be  given.  All  the  difference  between 
effective  and  ineffective  war-making  lies  in  the  suc- 

*From  a  proclamation  of  September  8,  1914,  at  Grivegnie, 
Belgium : 

I  must  insist  that  all  civilians  who  move  about  in  my  district, 
particularly  those  of  Beyne-Hensay,  FMron,  Bois  de  Breux,  and 
Grivegnee,  show  their  respect  to  the  German  officers  by  taking  off 
their  hats,  or  lifting  their  hands  to  their  heads  in  military  salute. 

In  case  of  doubt,  every  German  soldier  must  be  saluted.  Any 
one  who  disregards  this  must  expect  the  military  to  make  them- 
selves respected  bv  any  means. 

(Signed)     Dieckmann. 

Tlie  same  principle  is  implied  in  a  verdict  at  Bruges  reported  by 
Mr.  Walter  Duranty,  October  21,  1918:  "One  English  woman 
was  fined  300  marks  or  a  week's  imprisonment  for  'wearing  an  anti- 
German  expression  in  the  official  Bureau,'  the  very  words  of  the 
condemnation  notice." 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MORALE?  21 

cess  of  government  or  command  in  enlisting  this  free 
contribution  of  the  man  to  his  defined  duty. 

But  perhaps  the  best  indication  of  a  good  morale 
is  the  liberty  felt  by  officials  of  all  grades  to  tell  the 
truth,  both  as  to  the  difficulties  of  the  task  ahead, 
and  as  to  the  failures  that  attend  its  course. 

When  we  see  the  high  command  of  Germany  re- 
ferring to  a  Marne  retreat  as  the  taking  of  **new 
positions,"  we  can  read  under  the  ambiguous  accu- 
racy of  the  phrase  a  fear  of  their  own  public  morale. 
Statesmen  of  other  lands  have  been  kno^\^l  to  mod- 
ify what  they  felt  to  be  a  bitter  dose;  and  usually 
it  has  been  the  morale  of  the  statesman  rather  than 
that  of  the  public  which  has  been  at  fault.  Prudent 
statesmen  and  censors  might  learn  much  from  the 
fact  that  when  the  news  of  the  disaster  to  the  Brit- 
ish fifth  army  on  the  days  succeeding  March  21st 
(1918)  began  to  roll  in,  recruiting  both  in  England 
and  in  Canada  took  a  sudden  upward  leap.  The 
human  mind,  always  apprehensive  and  trying  to 
decipher  the  future,  doubly  so  in  time  of  great  con- 
tingency such  as  war  brings,  is  chiefly  fearful  of 
being  protected  from  the  truth. 

For  the  tempering  of  the  truth  is  the  first  sign 
of  an  attempt  to  manipulate  morale  from  the  ex- 
terior; and  whatever  is  recognized  as  having  this 
aim  immediately,  and  by  that  fact,  becomes  suspect. 
Any  agency  professing  to  assist  morale,  any  occa- 
sion gotten  up  for  the  sake  of  rallying  a  shaken 
or  sleepy  morale,  will  partially  (I  do  not  say  wholly) 


22  MORALE   AND   ITS   ENEMIE3 

I  defeat  its  own  purpose.  It  establishes  at  once  a 
state  of  guard  and  scrutiny  on  the  part  of  its  in- 
tended beneficiaries.  For  as  a  state  of  the  will  of 
free  men,  morale  can  only  be  evolved  by  the  man 
himself,  his  own  reaction  to  his  own  data.  It  has 
been  the  fundamental  error  of  Germany  to  suppose 
that  the  soul  can  be  controlled  by  scientific  manage- 
ment. 

In  fact,  the  better  the  morale,  the  more  profound 
its  mystery  from  the  utilitarian  angle  of  judgment. 
There  is  something  miraculous  in  the  power  of  a 
bald  and  unhesitating  announcement  of  reverse  to 
steel  the  temper  of  men  attuned  to  making  sacri- 
fices and  to  meeting  emergencies.  No  one  can  touch 
the  deepest  moral  resources  of  an  army  or  nation 
who  does  not  know  the  fairly  regal  exaltation  with 
which  it  is  possible  for  men  to  face  an  issue — if 
they  believe  in  it.  There  are  times  when  men  seem 
to  have  an  appetite  for  suffering,  when — to  judge 
from  their  own  demeanor —  the  best  bait  fortune 
could  offer  them  is  the  chance  to  face  death  or 
to  bear  an  inhuman  load.  This  state  of  mind  does 
not  exist  of  itself:  it  is  morale  at  its  best,  and  it 
appears  only  when  the  occasion  strikes  a  nerve 
which  arouses  the  super-earthly  vistas  of  human 
consciousness  or  subconsciousness.  But  it  com- 
monly appears  at  the  summons  of  a  leader  who 
himself  welcomes  the  challenge  of  the  task  he  sets 
before  his  followers.  It  is  the  magic  of  King  Alfred 
in  his  appeal  to  his  chiefs  to  do  battle  with  the 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  MORALE?  23 

Danes,  when  all  that  he  could  hold  out  to  them  was 
the  prospect  of  his  own  vision, — 

''This — that  the  sky  grows  darker  yet 
And  the  sea  rises  higher." 

Morale,  for  all  the  greater  purposes  of  war,  is  a 
state  of  faith;  and  its  logic  will  be  the  superb  and 
elusive  logic  of  human  faith.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  morale,  while  not  identical  with  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  cause,  can  never  reach  its  height  unless 
the  aim  of  the  war  can  be  held  intact  in  the  undis- 
sembled  moral  sense  of  the  people.  This  is  one  of 
the  provisions  in  the  doopor  order  of  things  for  the 
slow  predominance  of  the  better  brands  of  justice. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF    MORALE, — INSTINCTS   AND 
FEELINGS 

The  call  to  war  strikes  straight  for  the  deeper 
reservoirs  of  active  energy,  sets  every  nerve  agog, 
and  summons  up  a  response  greater  than  we  can 
bring  to  ordinary  tasks.  It  is  charged  with  pre- 
monition, and  yet  strangely  also  with  reminiscence, 
as  if  the  fire  of  warriors  long  dead  were  once  more 
burning  in  our  common  and  sluggish  veins.  How- 
ever much  the  rational  and  kindly  part  of  us  abhors 
war,  something  in  us  welcomes  it:  for  nature  has 
not  left  us  unfitted  for  the  ardors  of  combat  and 
radical  adventure.  Whatever  it  brings,  war  always 
brings  *'The  Day," — the  day  never  planned,  yet 
never  dropped  from  subconscious  hope, — the  great 
occasion  to  which  we  may  give  ourselves  soul  and 
body,  without  reserve.  In  the  universal  unsettle- 
ment  all  things  have  become  possible ;  half  the  work 
of  overcoming  the  dull  resistance  to  change  is  done 
for  us  by  the  event ;  the  world  has  suddenly  become 
vastly  worth  living  in.  In  every  heart  still  pos- 
sessed of  youth,  war  calls  out  a  resonant  and  fathom- 
less "I  can."  And  the  aged,  called  on  to  take  up 
again  the  work  of  their  vigorous  years,  find  them- 
selves, almost  beyond  belief,  able. 

24 


LNSTINCTS  AND  FEELINGS  25 

All  this,  however  sobered  by  second  thought, 
means  that  the  occasion  of  war  excites  instincts 
deep-laid  in  human  nature.  Even  in  common  anger, 
one  may  find  himself  trembling  under  the  pulses  of 
an  inward  engine  whose  presence  he  hardly  guessed: 
the  spring  of  the  fighting-instinct  has  been  touched. 
But  the  anger  of  a  nation  called  to  war  is  no  com- 
mon anger.  The  fighting-instinct  is  coupled  with 
another,  the  instinct  of  the  herd.  A  new  and  far- 
flung  fraternity  is  in  the  air ;  for  there  is  the  haunt- 
ing knowledge  that  the  herd  is  in  motion,  is  attack- 
ing or  being  attacked, — and  if  attacking,  then  being 
attacked, — in  any  case,  then,  in  danger.  To  know 
that  is  enough.  The  neighbor  is  no  longer  the  in- 
different mortal  he  was  yesterday :  he  belongs  with 
us  to  the  tribe,  the  nation.  ''The  nation"? — the 
word  has  changed  its  meaning,  and  instead  of  call- 
ing to  mind  a  dullish  governmental  agency,  source 
of  mixed  good  and  evil  and  regarded  accordingly, 
it  now  evokes  a  vague  but  glorious  image,  object  of 
an  unwonted,  generous,  protective  pride.  Because 
of  ''her,"  that  primitive  sense  of  allegiance  spring- 
ing from  the  instinct  of  the  herd  takes  the  finer 
form  of  what  men  call  patriotism;  and  many  a 
man's  superficial  rationality  has  been  taken  by  sur- 
prise at  the  depth  of  its  hold  upon  him. 

This  tribal  sense,  identical  in  both  soldier  and 
civilian,  makes  the  permanent  background  of  feel- 
ing much  the  same  in  both,  though  the  active  kill- 
ing deed,  and  the  physical  fighting  rage  that  go 


26  MORALE  AND   ITS   ENEMIES 

with  it,  come  to  the  soldier  only.  When  the  civilian 
says  "We  must  fight  on,"  the  full  stretch  of  his 
thought  reaches  the  soldier  and  means,  "You  must 
kill  on."  And  when  the  soldier  says,  "We  are  at- 
tacking to-morrow,"  his  thought  sweeps  into  its 
dim  borders  the  homes  and  workshops  of  a  nation 
and  means,  "America  is  attacking  to-morrow." 

All  the  experiences  of  war  are  governed  by  this 
curious  and  immense  extension  of  personality. 
Hence  the  durable  pugnacity  of  war  is  seldom  ex- 
plosive like  that  of  common  anger :  it  has  a  sterner 
and  weightier  as  well  as  a  longer  task;  its  set  is 
deeper  and  its  breathing  more  deliberate.  Even  our 
instincts  are  aw^are  that  war  is  a  relation  not  be- 
tween persons  but  between  States.  They  are  little 
confused  by  the  fact — sometimes,  as  in  Tolstoi's 
case,  disturbing  to  reflection — that  the  men  engaged 
in  killing  one  another  are  not  personal  foes.  The 
fighting-instinct  understands  that  it  is  in  the  service 
of  the  social  instinct.  And  not  uncommonly  the 
feeling  of  crowd-loyalty,  together  with  the  equally 
instinctive  love  of  adventure,  quite  submerge  the 
sense  of  hostility  or  resentment. 

However,  a  sound  and  lasting  morale  cannot  exist 
unless  both  soldier  and  citizen  feel  that  the  action 
of  the  enemy  touches  them  individually,  no  matter 
through  how  many  intermediate  links.  "Tell  that 
to  the  marines"  is  the  legend  of  Mr.  Flagg's  well- 
known  poster,  showing  a  contemporary  knight  an- 
grily shedding  his  coat  at  a  tale  of  violence  or  de- 


INSTINCTS  AND  FEELINGS  27 

pravity  across  several  thousand  miles  of  land  and 
sea.  Learned  men  sometimes  argue  whether  States 
are  subject  to  the  same  moral  rules  that  affect  per- 
sons :  yet  as  a  matter  of  plain  psychology,  nothing 
is  more  evident  than  that  the  war-spirit  in  any  na- 
tion depends  on  regarding  the  deeds  of  the  enemy 
State  as  threatening,  inhuman,  treacherous,  arro- 
gant, or  otherwise  intolerable,  in  just  the  same  way 
that  personal  deeds  may  be :  they  must  touch  in  the 
same  way  the  same  springs  of  resentment  in  each 
of  the  millions  of  bodies  of  the  people.  Polite  diplo- 
matic crimes,  however  menacing,  seldom  stir  public 
wrath  until  they  are  embodied  in  some  personal 
outrage  that  can  stand  as  their  concrete  symbol. 
The  psychological  laws  of  morale  are  therefore  first 
of  all  the  laws  of  personal  pugnacity. 

Pugnacity  is  one  of  two  or  three  ways  of  meeting 
an  obstacle.  The  easiest  way  is  to  give  up,  go 
around,  or  retreat;  pugnacity  is  a  way  of  added 
effort.  It  can  only  exist  where  there  are  reserves 
of  energy  to  be  called  on:  a  completely  exhausted 
person  is  incapable  of  wrath.  In  fact,  pugnacity  is 
probably  developed  by  nature  originally  as  a  sort  of 
moble  reserve  for  coming  to  the  aid  of  other  instincts 
when  in  difficulty.  It  may  take  a  very  mild  form, 
as  in  the  extra  effort  one  puts  into  opening  a  stub- 
born door.  There  is  a  tell-tale  warmth,  in  some 
persons  what  we  might  call  a  "threshold  of  pro- 
fanity," which  marks  the  fact  that  the  reserves  are 


28  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

beginning  to  arrive.  Or,  as  one  of  the  two  typical 
passions  of  human  nature,  it  may  rise  to  the  level 
of  transport.  But  throughout  the  gamut  we  can 
see  that  it  means  new  energy  put  behind  the  purpose 
in  hand;  that  the  bodily  disturbance  is  intended  to 
fit  the  organism  for  strong  and  sustained  exertion. 

In  human  beings,  pugnacity  always  personifies 
its  object,  even  to  the  point  of  apostrophizing  the 
unruly  door.  This  reaction  is  not  always  scientific; 
and  experience,  in  the  case  of  inanimate  things, 
gradually  substitutes  a  more  inquiring  mind,  while 
retaining  the  pugnacity  in  the  form  of  mettle  or 
spirit.  But  where  the  obstacle  is  personal,  there 
remains  a  place  for  indignation.  That  is,  where 
all  the  means  of  persuasion  have  failed,  and  the  de- 
liberate bad  will  is  a  fact  in  the  world  which  we 
must  face  and  meet.  The  change  from  normal  to 
hostile  relations  is  usually  slow,  reluctant,  and  the 
result  of  a  cumulation  of  events ;  for  it  is  not  simply 
a  change  of  behavior,  but  a  change  of  the  entire 
system  of  assumptions,  ideas,  and  hopes  under 
which  relations  are  carried  on.  We  hope  against 
hope  for  a  time;  we  launch  an  ultimatum;  then  we 
cast  the  die,  the  word  of  breach  is  uttered,  and 
"what  worlds  away." 

In  such  cases  we  can  see  that  pugnacity,  first  of 
all,  must  he  certain  of  itself,  certain  both  of  its 
facts  and  of  its  cause.  There  is  no  surer  way  to 
deflate  an  angry  man  than  to  show  a  material  flaw 
in  his  premises.     And,   second,   pugnacity  always 


INSTINCTS  AND  PEELINGS  29 

requires  a  moral  motive,  though  its  occasion  is  ma- 
terial. It  lights  not  on  the  property  that  is  taken, 
but  on  the  theft  in  the  taking.  It  always  adopts 
the  language  **You  ought." 

Beasts  and  children  will  fight  for  what  they  want 
simply  because  they  want  it,  without  compunction 
on  the  score  of  * '  right. ' '  Mature  men  seldom  achieve 
this  sublime  inconsiderateness.  The  most  unblush- 
ing robber  in  face  of  his  victim  feels  a  pressure  to 
make  it  appear  that  his  rights  have  somehow  been 
invaded,  by  society  if  not  by  the  individual:  the 
wolf  tries  the  lamb  and  finds  him  guilty. 

Reflective  and  experienced  culprits,  it  is  true, 
weary  in  time  of  the  burdensome  hypocrisy  and 
throw  off  the  mask.  But  it  is  clear  that  the  leaders 
of  Germany  could  have  won  the  nation  to  war 
neither  in  1870  nor  now  without  a  plausible  show 
that  their  war  was  a  war  of  defense.  And  as  the 
facts  gradually  oust  the  now  well-rooted  falsehood, 
the  will  to  war  of  the  Central  Powers  weakens,  and 
would  weaken  faster  but  for  the  dread  that  the 
wrath  of  the  world  may  indeed  make  their  fight  now 
one  for  national  existence. 

Thus  indignation  in  mature  human  beings  always 
assumes  the  garb  of  moral  indignation;  and  this 
implies  that  the  normal  exercise  of  the  fighting- 
instinct  is  in  the  interest  of  justice,  and  against 
a  being  capable  of  seeing  moral  distinctions.  Stupid- 
ity itself  would  not  provoke  impatience  except  for 


30  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

the  assumption  that  humanity — and  animals — ought 
not  to  be  stupid,  and  that  they  know  it. 

And  it  should  be  added  that  as  a  form  of  passion, 
anger  is  frequently  a  highly  self-forgetful  and  gen- 
erous experience.  As  a  radical  state  of  will,  it  abol- 
ishes petty  considerations,  ceases  the  effort  to  save 
remnants  of  amenity  and  advantage,  casts  prudence 
to  the  winds  and  makes  a  clean  sweep.  It  frequently 
assumes  great  risks  and  much  exertion  which  a  pru- 
dent neutrality  or  compromise  could  avoid.  As  be- 
tween the  man  who  has  a  capacity  for  wrath,  and  a 
man  incapable  of  any  radical  passion,  few  would 
hesitate  to  choose  the  former. 

But  anger  is  noble  only  in  the  noble;  and  as  a 
personal  explosion  it  always  bears  the  trace  of  the 
failure  it  signalizes.  The  serving  of  ultimata  is  not 
good  building  material  for  social  life.  And  the  same 
must  be  said  of  the  pugnacious  attitude  toward 
other  nations :  it  is  in  each  case  a  last  resort  and  a 
confession  of  ''mortal  mind,"  at  some  time  in  the 
past  if  not  at  the  moment.  Yet  if  the  failure  exists 
it  is  far  more  honorable  to  confess  it,  and  fight — 
if  it  is  justice  one  is  fighting  for — than  to  maintain 
a  guilty  amiability.  And  when  in  the  event  of  war 
pugnacity  is  combined  with  the  social  feelings  and 
their  instinctive  loyalties,  it  may  acquire  an  almost 
religious  dignity. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  the  sense  of  certainty 
necessary  to  pugnacity  is  confirmed  by  social  au- 


INSTINCTS  AND  FEELINGS  31 

thority  and  suggestion.  The  man  who  fights  hia 
own  personal  battles  assumes  a  great  burden  of 
assurance:  but  he  who  fights  in  company  ^vith  his 
community  may  read  his  own  conviction  in  the  eyes 
of  his  neighbors  on  every  hand.  His  critical  faculty 
is  disarmed  by  the  momentum  of  common  consent; 
he  begins  to  believe  in  his  cause  with  an  apostolic 
fervor. 

And  as  to  the  moral  ingredient  necessary  to  the 
fighting  spirit  in  responsible  men,  any  cause  which 
one  serves  in  common  with  others  will  have  the  be- 
ginning of  a  moral  sanction  just  because  it  is  a 
common  cause.  The  genuine  devotion  one  gives  to 
the  community,  the  loyalty,  the  labor  and  the  sacri- 
fice, lend  their  color  to  the  cause  itself.  Psychologi- 
cally, it  is  easy  for  us  mortals  to  invert  the  true 
order  of  dependence  and  believe  a  cause  good  be- 
cause we  unselfishly  sacrifice  for  it,  rather  than 
sacrifice  for  it  because  we  have  found  it  good.  The 
herd-impulse  tends  of  itself,  automatically,  to  sanc- 
tion and  sustain  the  fighting-impulse. 

And  in  fact,  the  elevation  of  spirit  that  comes  of 
yielding  to  the  social  instinct  is  not  unreal.  Whether 
for  good  cause  or  ill,  war  demands  courage  and  a 
proffering  of  the  ultimate  sacrifice.  It  develops  a  ^ 
brotherhood  in  the  ranks  and  a  compactness  in  the 
national  life  which  are  substantial  gains.  It  may 
lead  many  a  mind  into  a  new  breadth  and  generosity 
of  aim.  The  discovery  of  the  smallness  of  private 
concerns,  and  the  vitality  of  that  public  interest 


32  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

that  had  seemed  so  theoretical, — more  than  this, 
the  actual  sense  of  malaise  and  lostness  if  one  is 
not  palpably  in  the  harness  of  the  common  task, — 
all  this  amounts  to  a  revaluing  of  existence  and 
perhaps  the  opening  of  a  new  chapter  in  personal 
development. 

More  than  once  I  have  heard  it  said  among  our- 
selves that  any  cause  which  men  are  willing  to  die 
for  deserves  respect.  It  would  be  truer  to  the 
psychology  of  the  case  to  say  that  any  willingness 
to  die  for  a  cause  deserves  respect;  but  no  respect 
is  due  to  the  willingness  to  let  this  virtue  excuse 
the  failure  to  examine  the  cause.  One  who  is  con- 
scious of  making  a  moral  investment  in  his  coun- 
try's cause,  and  has  filled  his  ears  with  the  authori- 
tative identifications  of  patriotism  with  duty  and 
religion,  has  no  doubt  a  powerful  invitation  to  neg- 
lect or  slight  the  inquiry  into  the  outlying  issues 
whose  character  gives  the  sign  of  plus  or  minus  to 
the  whole  affair.  But  just  this  appearance  of  suffi- 
cient sanction  which  the  emotions  and  virtues  of 
herd-feeling  cast  over  all  war-making  is  the  chief 
mischief  of  crowd-psychology.  Wlien  pugnacity  is 
combined  with  patriotism  it  may,  as  we  have  said, 
acquire  almost  religious  dignity;  but  whether  or 
not  it  does  acquire  that  dignity  depends  on  some- 
thing beyond  the  limit  of  feeling  or  instinct.  And 
without  this  something  beyond,  feeling  and  instinct 
are  not  a  fit  foundation  for  a  lasting  morale:  the 
false  appearance  of  worth  is  the  worst  enemy  of 
real  worth. 


CHAPTER  ly 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  MORALE, — KNOWLEDGE  AND 
BELIEF 

One  who  has  yielded  himself  to  the  impulse  of  the 
crowd,  at  a  game,  or  a  rally,  or  in  the  tide  of  war- 
feeling,  may  shortly  come  to  realize  that  he  has  be- 
come less  of  a  thinker,  that  he  has  surrendered  some- 
thing of  his  mind  as  well  as  of  his  will  to  the  keep- 
ing of  the  mass.  He  imitates  more  than  usual,  is 
more  credulous,  and  (as  if  subconsciously  aware  of 
a  certain  weakness  of  root)  more  anxiously  on  the 
lookout  for  leaders  to  follow.  At  the  same  time,  he 
is  inclined  to  be  fickle  in  passing  from  one  to  the 
other  because  the  accustomed  ground  of  judgment 
is  lacking.  Under  the  influence  of  crowd-feeling, 
one  can  be  suspicious  without  being  discriminating, 
panicky  without  being  progressive,  dogmatic  with- 
out being  convinced.  In  short,  the  new  development 
of  one's  social  nature  has  been  purchased  at  some 
cost :  one  may  have  surrendered  too  much. 

Is  it  not  obvious  that  a  morale  dependent  pri- 
marily upon  the  instinctive  impulses  of  pugnacity 
and  national  feeling  must  lack  something  vital,  if 
only  for  this  reason, — that  in  the  order  of  nature, 
these  impulses  themselves  depend  upon  something 
elsef    They  are  only  called  into  existence  by  their 

33 


34  MORALE   AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

appropriate  "stimulus," — i.e.,  some  condition  or 
fact  in  the  world  which  arouses  indignation  and  the 
defensive  concentration  of  herd-feeling.  Thus  feel- 
ing normally  results  from  what  we  know  or  believe ; 
if  belief,  as  sometimes  happens,  is  generated  by  the 
feeling,  the  natural  order  is  inverted. 

It  would  be  needless  to  dwell  on  this  point,  were 
it  not  so  easy  to  ignore  it  in  practice,  and  were  it 
not  for  the  fact  that  much  current  psychology  in 
eifect  denies  it. 

There  are  still  officers  in  army  and  navy — not 
as  many  as  formerly — who  believe  exclusively  in 
the  morale  that  works  its  way  into  every  body 
of  recruits  through  discipline  and  the  sway  of 
esprit  de  corps.  ''They  know  that  they're  here  to 
can  the  Kaiser,  and  that's  all  they  need  to  know," 
said  one  such  officer  to  me  very  recently.  "After 
a  man  has  been  here  two  months,  the  worst  punish- 
ment you  can  give  him  is  to  tell  him  he  can't  go  to 
France  right  away.  The  soldier  is  a  man  of  action ; 
and  the  less  thinking  he  does,  the  better."  There  is 
an  amount  of  practical  wisdom  in  this ;  for  the  hu- 
man mind  has  a  large  capacity  for  adopting  beliefs 
that  fit  the  trend  of  its  habits  and  feelings,  and  this 
trend  is  powerfully  moulded  by  the  unanimous  direc- 
tion of  an  army's  purpose.  There  is  an  all  but 
irresistible  orthodoxy  within  a  body  committed  to 
a  war.  And  the  current  (pragmatic)  psychology 
referred  to,  making  the  intelligence  a  mere  instru- 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BELIEF  35 

ment  of  the  will,  would  seem  to  sanction  the  maxim, 
** First  decide,  and  then  think  accordingly." 

But  there  are  two  remarks  to  be  made  about  this 
view.  First,  that  in  the  actual  creation  of  morale 
within  an  army  corps  much  thinking  is  included, 
and  nothing  is  accomplished  without  the  consent 
of  such  thoughts  as  a  man  already  has.  Training 
does  wonders  in  making  morale,  when  nothing  in 
the  mind  opposes  it.  Second,  that  the  morale  which 
is  sufficient  for  purposes  of  training  is  not  neces- 
sarily sufficient  for  the  strains  of  the  field. 

The  intrinsic  weakness  of  ** affective  morale,"  as 
psychologists  call  it,  is  that  it  puts  both  sides  on  the 
same  mental  and  moral  footing:  it  either  justifies 
our  opponents  as  well  as  ourselves,  or  it  makes  both 
sides  the  creatures  of  irrational  emotion. 

This  fact  is  well  illustrated  in  a  book  on  the  psy- 
chology, of  war  that  has  had  some  vogue  in  the 
army :  and  the  point  is  so  important  that  I  ask  leave 
to  quote  from  it  at  some  length.  Major  Eltinge  is 
regarding  the  army  from  the  angle  of  crowd  psy- 
chology, holding  that  ''an  army  is  a  crowd  with  a 
common  training  and  therefore  easier  to  move  than 
any  other  crowd  to  unanimous  action."    He  says: 

"When  it  is  proposed  to  imbue  the  mind  of  a 
crowd  with  ideas  and  beliefs — with  modern  social 
theories  for  instance — the  leaders  have  recourse  to 
different  expedients.  The  principal  of  them  are 
three  in  number  and  clearly  defined,  affirmation, 
repetition  and  contagion.     Their  action  is   some- 


36  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

what  slow,  but  their  effects  once  produced  are  very 
lasting. 

"Affirmation  pure  and  simple,  kept  free  of  all 
reasoning  and  all  proof,  is  one  of  the  surest  means 
of  making  an  idea  enter  the  minds  of  crowds.  .  .  . 
When  an  affirmation  has  been  repeated  sufficiently 
and  there  is  unanimity  in  this  repetition  .  .  .  what 
is  called  a  current  of  opinion  is  formed  and  the 
powerful  mechanism  of  contagion  intervenes.  .  .  . 
Reason  is  incapable  of  transforming  man's  opin- 
ions." 

So  far  we  see  Major  Eltinge  accepting  the  tend- 
ency of  the  crowd-feeling  to  take  control  of  the 
mind  and  form  its  opinions,  as  a  principle  for  shap- 
ing army  morale.  Now  see  the  application  to  the 
public  in  general  and  the  central  issues  of  the  war : 

"There  has  been  a  perfect  flood  of  articles  justi- 
fying the  course  of  one  or  other  of  the  contestants 
in  the  present  great  European  war.  Those  articles 
did  not  come  from  the  ignorant  or  those  of  weak 
judgment  who  without  reason  were  led  away  by 
their  emotions.  They  came  from  college  professors, 
men  of  letters,  scientists,  representing  the  best  in- 
telligence, education  and  reasoning  power  of  the 
Avorld.  Yet  each,  his  views  colored  by  his  emotions, 
reasons  to  the  end  that  clearly  justifies  his  own  side. 

"The  German  people  individually  and  as  a  whole 
believe  that  they  are  fighting  desperately  in  defense 
of  their  liberties, — their  very  homes  even.  The 
Allies  feel  just  as  strongly  that  the  Germans  wan- 
tonly attacked  them.  The  best  minds  of  both  sides 
are  submerged  by  emotion.  .   .   . 

"When  the  war  is  over,  writers  and  historians, 
writing  quietly  in  their  studies  uninfluenced  by  the 
emotion  of  the  conflict,  will  point  out  reasons  that 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BELIEF  37 

never  existed.  They  will  point  out  aggression, 
vanity,  pride,  desire  for  self-aggrandizement  or 
hope  of  political  reward  as  the  motive  for  acts  that 
were  prompted  solely  by  patriotic  fear  for  the  coun- 
try," etc. 

A  book  could  hardly  go  farther  toward  reduc- 
ing the  enemy's  cause  and  our  o^^^l  to  the  same 
moral  status,  thus  destroying  the  morale  of  both 
army  and  people  at  its  roots.  Naturally,  the  writer 
had  no  such  intention.  He  was  simply  misled  by  the 
glamor  of  a  ''crowd  psychology"  which  has  had 
many  true  things  to  say  about  human  nature;  but 
which  is  so  far  from  giving  the  w^hole  truth  that  it 
leaves  wholly  out  of  view  the  central  nerve  of  all 
earnest  and  long-range  action, — conviction,  the  rea- 
soned belief  of  thinking  men. 

Crowds  are  capable  of  doing  reasonless  things 
upon  impulse  and  of  adopting  creeds  without  re- 
flection. But  an  army  is  not  a  crowd;  still  less  is  a 
nation  a  crowd.  A  mob  or  crowd  is  an  unorganized 
group  of  people  governed  by  less  than  the  average 
individual  intelligence  of  its  members.  Armies  and 
nations  are  groups  of  people  so  organized  that  they 
are  controlled  by  an  intelligence  higher  than  the 
average.  The  instincts  that  lend,  and  must  lend, 
their  immense  motive-power  to  the  great  purposes 
of  war  are  the  servants,  not  the  masters,  of  that  in- 
telligence. 

Man  has,  perhaps,  but  slight  claim  to  be  called 


38  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

**the  reasoning  animal":  he  is,  let  us  say,  nine- 
tenths  impulse  and  one-tenth  reason  or  reflection, 
but  this  one-tenth  has  the  advantage  of  being 
cumulative.  A  thought  to-day  and  another  thought 
to-morrow:  a  doubt  here,  a  query  there,  an  idea 
struck  out  by  this  event  or  by  that  conversation, 
build  themselves  together  and  become  the  control- 
ling structure  of  our  lives.  The  impressions  I  get 
from  reading  to-day's  paper  vanish,  or  seem  to 
vanish.  I  cannot  recall  what  I  read  yesterday.  But 
that  reading  either  confirmed  or  weakened  the  be- 
liefs that  keep  my  purposes  pointed  in  their  course. 
The  helm  does  not  need  to  keep  always  moving.  A 
deflection  once  made  alters  the  course  of  the  ship 
till  the  end  of  the  voyage. 

Feeling  taken  by  itself  is  an. unreliable  support  of 
action,  and  is  incapable  of  direct  control  either  from 
outside  or  from  inside.  Anyone  who  has  tried  to 
train  his  feelings  into  the  groove  of  what  he  is  sup- 
posed to  feel,  or  thinks  he  ought  to  feel,  on  the  occa- 
sion let  us  say  of  a  wedding,  his  o^\m  wedding,  or  a 
catastrophe,  or  even  a  death,  will  corroborate  the 
statement.  The  slight  feeling  of  shame  with  which 
one  listens  to  an  orator  who  is  visibly  aiming  his 
appeal  to  feeling  shows  the  same  thing.  Feeling  is 
essentially  free,  individual,  and  transitory ;  its  func- 
tion is  to  make  the  connection  between  what  I  know 
and  what  I  do.  The  connection  is  the  important 
thing,  and  if  it  can  be  made  without  feeling  it  may 
be  none  the  worse.     The  only  justified  appeal  to 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BELIEF  39 

free  and  intelligent  beings  is  by  way  of  what  they 
think.  What  one  himself  feels  as  he  tells  his  story 
or  makes  his  argument  will  carry  itself  across  with- 
out any  separate  exertion. 

The  point  is  observed  in  practice  by  all  instinctive 
leaders  of  men.  If  they  have  a  state  of  will  to  pro- 
duce, they  do  not  ''assert  and  repeat"  the  conclusion 
they  wish  drawn:  they  state  the  facts  which  are 
their  own  premises,  and  let  their  hearers  draw  their 
o^vn  conclusions.  They  allow  knowledge  to  do  its 
natural  work  on  the  will.  One  of  the  most  remark- 
able changes  in  morale  that  has  taken  place  mthin 
our  o^vn  borders  is  that  in  the  lower  East  Side  of 
New  York,  which  between  Fall  of  1917  and  Summer 
of  1918  practically  discarded  its  non-patriotic  inter- 
national socialism  for  a  very  genuine  national  loy- 
alty. The  man  who  had  more  to  do  with  that  change 
than  any  other  person  was  asked  to  explain  it.  He 
said,  ''When  the  Kaiser  put  over  the  treaty  of 
Brest-Litovsk  he  automatically  wiped  socialism  out 
of  the  East  Side.  Our  work  was  simply  to  let  in 
the  light. ' '  In  the  army,  there  has  been  a  high  per- 
centage of  desertion  from  units  containing  moun- 
taineers of  east  Tennessee,  northern  Alabama,  and 
Georgia ;  armed  squadrons  of  the  Eleventh  Cavalry 
stationed  at  Fort  Oglethorpe  have  been  detailed  to 
round  them  up.  This  condition  has  gone  hand  in 
hand  with  the  isolation  and  ignorance  of  these 
mountain  people;  and  the  cavalrymen  have  found 
on  various  occasions  that  a  campaign  of  enlighten- 


40  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ment  has  been  more  effective  in  bringing  deserters 
back  to  the  colors  than  the  armed  man-hunt. 

**The  trips  of  the  cavalrymen  after  hiding  men, 
many  of  them  wearing  the  uniform  of  Uncle  Sam, 
have  been  of  the  nature  of  educational  tours  among 
people  whose  attitude  of  opposition  to  the  w^ar  and 
to  the  Government  was  based  on  ignorance  and 
lies." 

And  the  same  principle  holds  in  the  dealing  of 
statesmen  w4th  the  morale  of  entire  peoples.  Those 
who  feel  the  immediate  pressure  of  the  emer- 
gency are  frequently  impatient  with  the  demand 
for  information  about  the  causes  of  the  war,  and  for 
authoritative  statements  of  war  aims.  After  a  dis- 
cussion of  certain  questions  of  nationality,  one  of 
our  diplomatic  corps  abroad  said  to  me,  "That  is 
all  very  interesting;  but  the  main  thing  now  is  to 
get  on  wdth  the  war.  And  the  main  thing  for  our 
people  to  realize  is  that  so  far  we  are  not  w^inning; 
we  have  not  yet  struck  the  winning  gait."  At  the 
some  moment.  Great  Britain  was  issuing  statements 
of  her  aims,  and  creating  a  **War  Aims  Committee" 
to  carry  the  discussion  through  the  island.  There 
is  in  fact  no  way  to  ''get  on  with  the  w^ar"  except 
by  keeping  the  thoughts  of  the  people  together. 
There  is  no  such  thing,  either  in  army  or  civilian 
world,  as  being  too  clear  about  the  mental  setting 
of  the  war ;  there  is  no  such  thing  except  for  diflficul- 
ties  of  expression,  as  repeating  the  tale  too  often. 
A  lover  who  replies  to  his  lady's  question,  "I  have 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BELIEF  41 

told  you  once ;  is  that  not  enough  ? ' '  may  be  logically 
defensible,  but  he  is  psychologically  far  astray ;  and 
a  people  at  war  is  in  somewhat  her  position  who  is 
giving  all  she  has.  The  more  profoundly  the  feel- 
ings and  the  will  are  involved,  the  more  insatiable 
and  just  is  the  appetite  for  knowledge. 

There  is  a  time  for  thought,  as  I  am  sometimes 
reminded  by  friends  in  the  army,  and  a  time  for 
action;  the  day  of  deliberation  is  past.  My  answer 
is:  the  time  for  thought  is  whenever  the  questions 
arise.  For  us  as  a  nation,  the  major  deliberations 
are  indeed  past.  But  the  enemies  of  a  sound  morale 
arise  all  along  the  line,  as  the  first  flush  of  war-en- 
thusiasm gives  way  to  the  long  pull.  In  the  suc- 
ceeding chapters,  I  shall  deal  with  some  of  these 
more  prevalent  impediments  to  morale  in  knowledge 
and  belief,  namely: 

1.  A  failure  to  realize  the  war  itself; 

2.  The  inherent  fickleness  of  the  feeling  of  enmity; 

3.  The  awkward  consciousness  of  our  own  imper- 
fect political  righteousness ; 

4.  The  vague  and  unclear  image  of  the  ''State," — 
that  invisible  entity  in  whose  behalf  so  much  is 
sacrificed, — and  the  consequent  paling  of  patriotism. 

We  shall  speak  first  of  the  difficulty,  not  wholly 
surmountable,  of  realizing  the  fact  of  war  as  it  is. 


CHAPTER  V 

ON  REAX,IZING  THE  WAR 

For  four  years  and  more  there  has  been  about  our 
ears  the  fact  of  war,  a  complex  and  mighty  fact  like 
a  distant  and  rising  storm.  Yet  for  the  greater 
number  of  us,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  our  waking 
day,  it  remains  true  that  we  only  imperfectly  believe 
war  is  really  taking  place. 

At  a  distance  from  the  actual  scene  of  w^ar,  the 
existence  of  war  is  discredited  by  nine-tenths  of  the 
impressions  of  the  day's  work.  Where  everything 
invites  us  to  believe  in  the  usual,  the  unusual  can 
acquire  but  momentary  and  purely  mental  recogni- 
tion. The  unwelcome  knowledge  has  to  make  its 
way  against  the  momentum  of  a  lifetime's  purposes. 
We  say  that  there  is  a  war:  but  the  thing  that  comes 
to  our  minds  is  not  war — as  it  is. 

It  is  not  merely  habit,  but  the  habitual  and  in- 
stinctive belief  in  our  personal  good-fortune  that  is 
at  stake.  We  are  mentally  prepared  for  whatever 
carries  our  fortunes  forward:  we  are  mentally  set 
against  w^hatever  threatens  to  put  them  backward. 
The  most  fortunate  are  thus  the  most  incredulous 
of  misfortune:  and  one  of  the  most  insidious  dan- 
gers of  wealth  is  the  prepossession  that  no  other 
estate  is  normal  or  possible  for  me.    Wealth  is  ea- 

42 


ON  REALIZING  THE  WAK  43 

pecially  prone  to  take  to  heart  that  Psalm  which 
reads  **A  thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side  and  ten 
thousand  at  thy  right  hand;  but  it  shall  not  come 
nigh  thee. ' '  And  America,  as  a  whole,  has  the  habit 
of  prosperity. 

Thus  it  comes  about  that  beside  the  great  physical 
effort  of  mobilization  there  goes  another  effort, — 
that  of  mental  mobilization.  And  the  second  is  as 
momentous  as  the  first  for  the  maximum  effective 
morale. 

For  the  difference  between  a  languid  and  a  vigor- 
ous morale  is  just  the  difference  between  knowing 
a  thing  and  realizing  it.  And  ''realizing"  means 
seeing  its  dimensions  and  its  bearings,  what  it 
means  for  the  future  as  well  as  for  the  present,  for 
my  o^\Ti  action  as  well  as  for  that  of  others. 

The  prodigious  labor  of  waking  the  country  was 
a  matter  of  getting  the  country  to  realize  what  was 
taking  place.  Our  prophets  of  preparedness  spoke 
to  a  largely  unrealizing  world.  They  spoke  with 
emphasis  enough;  but  emphasis  does  not  produce 
belief.  Sweat  and  tears  on  the  part  of  prophets 
have  never  produced  belief.  The  world  has  its  taci- 
turn classifications  for  nervous  and  excited  minds, 
as  prophets  have  always  found;  and  unfortunately 
there  are  ten  unstable  and  irresponsible  prophets 
for  every  true  one.  Until  our  prophets  are  better 
psychologists,  their  work  will  be  largely  in  vain. 
And  even  now  when  the  truth  is  upon  us,  and  we 
desire  to  realize  it,  it  is  not  within  a  simple  act  of 


44  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

our  wills  to  do  so.  There  is  something  elusive  about 
that  state  of  mind  we  call  ** realization"  or  belief. 

Whatever  ''brings  the  war  home  to  us"  naturally 
moves  us  nearer  to  sensing  its  reality.  Seeing,  they 
say,  is  believing:  the  official  pictures  help;  and  the 
various  concrete  visible  facts  of  soldierdom,  and 
the  mighty  labors  of  a  nation  bestirring  itself  begin 
to  win  the  day  in  our  imaginations.  Yet  imagina- 
tion itself  has  to  confess  defeat :  it  scans  the  scenes 
for  the  thud  of  war ;  and  with  the  fall  of  the  curtain 
a  sense  of  disappointment  steals  over  us — the  heart 
of  the  thing  has  been  missed.  We  read  the  letters 
and  the  books,  we  hear  the  speakers,  and  much  is 
made  actual  and  vivid ;  but  one  thing  we  fail  to  grasp 
— the  war. 

Would  anything  give  us  the  reality,  anything 
short  of  being  over  there  and  being  in  it?  Would 
even  that  give  us  the  realization  of  the  fact?  It 
may  be  of  some  use  to  give  the  answer,  some  use  in 
appeasing  that  self-accusing  restlessness,  clamorous 
to  be  on  the  spot.  It  may  help  us  to  turn  that  good 
energy  into  more  useful  channels. 

Let  me  speak  from  my  own  observation  at  the 
British  and  French  fronts  and  say  that  being  over 
there  and  in  the  heart  of  the  war-drama  does  not 
dissipate  the  haunting  feeling  of  unreality.  Of  all 
the  denizens  of  the  war-zone,  the  practised  war- 
correspondent  probably  sees  the  most;  yet  he  does 
not  escape  this  constitutional  incredulity.    He  wins 


ON   REALIZING  THE   WAR  45 

his  stories  from  a  landscape  iii  which  the  unprac- 
tised witness  sees  confused  movements,  hears  much 
noise  near  and  remote,  perceives  sudden  trees  of 
smoke  and  dust  sprouting  full-gro^vn  from  the  hill- 
side and  dissolving,  notes  thin  lines  of  men  appear- 
ing out  of  nowhere  and  dropping  out  of  sight, — all  in 
a  frame  of  hills  and  clouds  and  woods  and  streams 
that  stand  patient  and  often  serene  while  little  man 
does  his  mightiest  in  the  midst  of  them,  destroy- 
ing chiefly  his  own  work  and  kind.  The  observer 
searches  for  words  that  will  stab  awake  his  own 
spirit  and  that  of  his  reader,  and  fails  to  find  them. 

But  realization  has  something  to  do  with  action. 
The  observer  cannot  realize ;  only  he  who  takes  part 
can  understand  what  it  means.  The  private  soldier 
then, — but  do  you  think  that  he  escapes  incredulity! 
I  can  assure  you  that  he  does  not.  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  is  more  beset  by  it  than  others ;  but  he, 
too,  sleeps  and  wakes  and  thinks  he  is  still  in  an 
evil  dream,  that  these  things  cannot  be  real.  In 
the  case  of  this  war  at  least,  seeing  is  not  believing; 
or  perhaps  we  should  put  it  this  way:  that  the  war 
cannot  be  seen. 

The  war  cannot  be  seen.  The  private  soldier  sees 
what  no  one  else  can  see.  He  is  there  at  the  white- 
hot  edge  where  history  is  being  beaten  into  its  new 
shape.  He  knows  the  event,  the  stream  of  events, 
not  as  one  who  explores  it,  but  as  one  who  plunges 
into  it  and  feels  the  tug  of  the  current  in  his  own 
body.    Perhaps  for  this  very  reason  he  feels  more 


46  MOEAX.E  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

keenly  the  imprisonment  of  his  mind,  his  ignorance 
of  the  wider  bearings  of  his  own  movements.  The 
actor  is  at  a  disadvantage  in  judging  the  play;  the 
soldier  is  at  a  similar  disadvantage  in  judging  the 
battle.  In  handing  his  will  over  to  the  control  of  his 
commanders,  he  has  necessarily  resigned  also  much 
of  the  knowledge  required  to  guide  that  will.  He 
has  a  vague  confidence,  sometimes  a  pathetic  confi- 
dence, that  what  he  fails  to  see  and  know  someone 
sees  and  knows — his  company  commander  probably, 
or  at  any  rate  the  general  staff,  the  war  council,  the 
high  officers  of  the  State.  And  even  this  confidence 
sometimes  deserts  him. 

For  he  has  had  reason  to  know  the  distance  be- 
tween the  human  official  mentality  and  omniscience ; 
and  more  than  this,  he  knows  tliat  much  of  the  truth 
of  history  lies  buried  with  the  memories  of  men  who 
fell  in  carrying  it  out.  Of  many  a  critical  action  the 
true  history  will  never  be  known.  And  as  for  the 
mysteries  that  regulate  the  attack  or  retreat  or 
transfer,  the  inexplicable  delays  that  beset  reliefs, 
supplies,  furloughs,  his  mind  has  long  since  ceased 
to  beat  at  the  bars  of  his  speculative  cage :  a  fatal- 
ism is  likely  to  supervene  which  is  not  the  fatalism 
of  a  divine  foredestiny,  but  that  of  a  mind  caught 
in  the  mesh  of  a  very  human  necessity  and  reduced 
to  the  simplicity  of  doing  the  next  thing  with  what 
power  one  has.  The  private  soldier  knows  that  he 
does  not  see  the  war. 

And  the  same  must  be  said  of  the  higher  officers, 


ON  REALIZING  THE  WAR  47 

SO  far  as  they  fail  to  see  what  the  private  soldier 
sees.  Step  into  the  headquarters  of  the  Sixth  French 
Army  where  General  Mestre  is  conducting  the  op- 
erations along  the  Aisne  back  of  the  Chemin  des 
Dames.  Around  the  walls  hang  great  maps ;  show- 
ing the  dispositions  of  the  German  divisions  and 
smaller  units  in  much  detail.  From  the  room  radi- 
ate hundreds  of  wires.  In  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood an  immense  group  of  officers  are  occupied  in 
collecting  data  of  all  kinds,  with  receiving  reports 
and  transmitting  orders.  Here  in  the  midst  is  the 
directing  mind,  quiet,  courteous,  taking  time  to  do 
the  honors  with  the  French  formality  which  is  so 
much  a  second  nature  that  it  becomes  an  element 
of  simple  grace.  It  is  evident  that  the  General  sees 
much  that  was  concealed  from  the  private  soldier: 
it  is  equally  evident  that  just  what  the  private  sol- 
dier most  intimately  sees  must  drop  out  of  the  Gen- 
eral's direct  knowledge.  He  must  deal  with  regi- 
ments, brigades,  divisions,  armies,  as  units.  He 
knows  that  the  private  soldier  is  here;  but  the  war 
must  come  before  him  as  a  schematic  totality.  The 
detail  must  be  largely  lost ;  to  the  mind  of  a  general 
the  war  becomes  generalized. 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  reports  a  conversation  with  Joffre 
while  Joffre  was  still  in  active  service,  in  which  that 
great  soldier  remarked  to  him  about  the  '^  strange- 
ness of  it  all."  This  sense  of  strangeness  is  simply 
the  confession  which  one  meets  everywhere,  of  a 
partial  grasp  of  the  event.     The  war,  so  far  as  it 


48  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

is  visible  at  all,  is  the  sum  of  a  million  separate 
visions  that  never  find  themselves  together  in  one 
mind, — each  one  living  vicariously  on  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  rest. 

At  times  some  one  of  these  many  angles  brings 
home  so  poignantly  the  bearings  of  a  pen  stroke  at 
Potsdam  that  one  involuntarily  exclaims,  "This  is 
the  war."  At  a  base-hospital,  perhaps,  where  part 
of  the  crop  of  war  is  garnered;  or  in  the  running 
cemeteries  interspersed  with  patches  of  rusted 
barbed  w^ire  along  the  road  from  Bapaume  to  Al- 
bert ;  or  in  the  Red  Cross  trains  that  pull  their  heavy 
burdens  into  Charing  Cross  with  such  clumsy  ten- 
derness as  railway  trains  can  show,  while  the  crowd 
stands  silent,  ready  with  its  mute  gifts  of  flowers. 
Here  at  Chauny  one  might  have  followed  the  wake 
of  a  retreating  army,  destroying  for  terror's  sake 
what  it  could  not  use ;  at  Champier  a  violated  ceme- 
tery, at  Roye  a  ruined  church,  tell  the  same  tale.  Or 
here,  at  Erith,  a  thousand  women  stand  all  day 
stamping  rivets  into  the  cartridge  belts  of  machine 
guns.  Or  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  other  thousands  of 
black-robed  women  hold  their  heads  high  and  proud. 
Or  even  farther  away  from  the  scene  of  warfare,  in 
some  quiet  country  spot,  a  thinker's  eye  straining 
into  the  future  sees  the  passing  of  old  social  orders, 
the  loss  of  the  France  or  the  England  of  yesterday: 
and  for  a  moment  one  may  seem  to  catch  through  his 
eyes  a  glimpse  of  the  war  as  it  is. 


ON  REALIZING  THE   WAE  49 

But  in  truth,  the  war  is  not  a  thing  that  can  be 
seen;  it  must  be  thought.  And  if  physical  vision 
hinders  or  preoccupies  the  free  flight  of  thought  it 
may  be  the  very  thing  that  prevents  the  realization 
of  the  war.  War  can  be  realized  only  through  what 
is  at  once  a  concrete  thing  and  an  incentive  of 
thought,  a  representative  of  something  greater  than 
itself,  in  short,  through  a  symbol.  The  most  vivid 
and  complete  sense  of  it  may  come  through  expe- 
riences which  are  no  direct  part  of  the  doings  of 
war,  but  which  stand  as  symbols  into  which  all  our 
fragmentary  impressions  can  be  poured  and  fused. 

Let  me  picture  one  such  experience.  After  a  day's 
delay  for  reasons  not  vouchsafed  to  the  public,  the 
Channel  boat  from  Havre  to  Southampton  receives 
from  the  Admiralty  the  word  to  sail.  Late  at  night, 
with  a  moon  low  in  the  West  and  a  sea  running  high, 
it  drops  out  of  the  harbor;  and  when  the  lights  of 
the  city  have  faded  and  only  the  great  fitful  gleam 
of  the  Point  of  France  marks  the  land  we  have  left, 
one  becomes  suddenly  aware  that  the  haze  above  the 
water  on  the  starboard  side  is  assuming  shape,  and 
the  steamer's  rail  glides  under  a  huge  silent  bulk 
from  which  one  slim  line  of  light  looks  dowai  on  us. 
Three  such  sentries  we  pass,  tangible  sigiis  of  the 
sleepless  vigilance  of  England,  ominous,  silent,  de- 
termined, as  if  emerging  secretly  from  the  world's 
subconscious  integrity  of  purpose.  They  also  are 
vulnerable,  those  great  vessels,  as  much  at  the 
mercy  of  the  terror  that  walketh  in  darkness  as  our- 


50  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

selves,  yet  throwing  their  resolute  protection  over 
us.  This  is  war :  in  its  grimness,  its  mystery,  and  its 
faith, — a  stream  of  the  weak  giving  itself  to  defend 
the  weak,  making  itself  for  the  time  the  passing 
body  of  the  eternal  certainty  that  rides  over  all  the 
lurid  contingencies  of  the  conflict. 

The  attitude  of  mind  of  audiences  following  film- 
pictures  of  the  war  is  not  without  its  significance. 
I  have  noticed  what  things  seemed  to  rouse  spon- 
taneous interest.  It  was  not  always  the  supposed 
climax  of  the  film  picture,  the  views  of  going  over 
the  top  that  cost  the  official  photographer  so  much; 
nor  the  assault,  which  in  the  picture  may  have 
seemed  strangely  casual  and  quiet.  But  the  sight 
of  the  boys  debarking,  the  long  columns,  the  end- 
lessly renewed  columns, — symbol  of  inexhaustible 
human  resources; — the  sight  of  their  escorts  of 
honor,  symbol  of  the  union  of  peoples; — the  sight 
of  their  form,  the  instant  synchronous  swing  of  the 
quick  time,  symbol  of  their  spirit  and  condition; — 
and  chief  of  all,  the  sight  of  Old  Glory  moving  up 
the  line,  going  forward  into  action,  proud,  proud 
Old  Glory, — symbol  of  everything  on  earth  we  are 
eager  to  serve:  this  alone  was  irresistible.  It  is 
through  the  symbol  that  the  mind  best  gropes  its  way 
to  realization. 

But  there  is  no  final  escape  from  the  recurrent 
onset  of  incredulity — nor  should  there  be.  For  at 
the  center  of  this  feeling  is  the  true  judgment  (quite 


ON   REALIZING   THE   WAB  51 

possibly  a  subconscious  judgment)  that  this  war  is 
essentially  an  anachronism,  a  method  of  solving  in- 
ternational problems  now  wholly  out  of  date.  It 
is  too  far  out  of  accord  with  our  political  temper  to 
be  wholly  real.  The  choice  of  it  was  possible  only 
to  minds  living  in  a  self-made  haze,  attitudinizing 
in  mediaeval  armor  before  the  glass  of  their  o^vn 
conceit,  and  prizing  as  advanced  what  is  only  the 
echo  of  forgotten  folly.  It  is  a  state  of  mind  sup- 
ported by  a  false  science  and  a  materially  pragmatic 
philosophy,  a  perverse  interpretation  of  history  and 
a  morbid  dramatization  of  dead  ideals  of  rulership 
and  empire,  blind  to  the  fact  that  new  methods  are 
already  born  and  that  the  solution  of  public  dilem- 
mas already  in  germ  exists.  America,  slow  to  be- 
lieve and  slow  to  act  was  slow  largely  through  the 
irrepressible  health  of  its  own  outlook,  the  good 
will  that  assumed  not  with  its  intellect  alone  but 
with  its  whole  being  that  the  age  of  war  is  gone. 
The  incredulity  of  the  average  citizen,  the  incre- 
dulity of  the  boys  in  the  trenches,  is  so  far  an  honest 
incredulity:  this  war  is  a  bad  dream,  a  dream  of 
minds  bound  in  evil.  Temporarily  it  is  in  their 
power  to  drag  all  Christendom  into  the  vortex  of 
their  o^vn  delirium,  but  only  until  the  common  pain 
can  bring  about  a  common  awakening. 

So  far,  we  must  suffer  whatever  disadvantage 
to  morale  comes  of  making  war  more  or  less 
awkwardly,  theoretically,  dutifully,  reluctantly,  de- 
void of  the  zest  of  Roman  legionaries  who  adored 


52  MORALE   AND   ITS   ENEMIES 

both  the  goal  and  the  method.  This  handicap,  such 
as  it  is,  we  can  accept,  with  pride  and  with  complete 
confidence  that  it  is  compensated  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ENMITY   AND   THE   ENEMY 

Instinct  will  come  to  the  aid  of  a  brief,  intense 
angry  effort;  but  it  will  do  little  or  nothing  to  sus- 
tain a  steady  fighting  temper  over  a  long  time. 
Animals  can  fight,  some  of  them  can  conduct  bat- 
tles ;  but  only  mankind  can  carry  on  feuds  and  wars. 
War-making  requires  the  moral  persistence  which 
only  the  reasoning  biped  can  supply,  not  merely 
because  of  the  complex  and  scientific  character  of 
its  operations,  but  because  there  is  something  in- 
wardly elusive  about  the  hostile  sentiment  itself. 

It  is  as  though  fighting  engendered  a  subtle  drug 
which  in  the  course  of  time  produced  numbness  to 
the  original  issue.  We  find  peoples,  like  individuals, 
forgetting  justice  and  flagging  in  the  will  to  war 
because  nature  refuses  to  support  antipathy  at  its 
original  vigor,  becomes  inhospitable  to  the  simple 
fact  or  relationship  of  enmity.  Just  as  something 
instinctive  and  unmoral  mixes  in  with  the  zest  of 
fighting  as  fighting  grows  warm,  so  something 
equally  unmoral  mixes  in  with  the  wish  to  stop  fight- 
ing, as  the  fighting  drags  through  the  seasons. 

It  is  well  to  understand,  as  far  as  we  can,  the 
causes  of  this  strange  treachery  of  the  hostile  feel- 
ings, mother  of  many  a  treacherous  peace. 

53 


54  MORALE   AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  some  at  least  of  the  reasons 
why  enmity  tends  to  undermine  its  o^^^l  founda- 
tions. In  the  first  place,  of  all  sentiments,  it  re- 
quires the  highest  degree  of  inner  tension.  Two 
opposite  attitudes  are  combined  in  it,  the  effort  to 
bring  the  hated  object  forward  into  clear  conscious- 
ness, and  the  effort  to  expel  it  from  consciousness, 
because  it  is  hated.  The  hater  is  thus  in  a  state  of 
partial  self-checkage :  he  becomes  a  divided  and  rela- 
tively unhappy  object,  preoccupied  with  what  he 
wants  to  expel  from  the  universe.  If  everybody 
loves  a  lover,  as  they  say,  there  is  an  equally  natu- 
ral tendency  to  hate  the  chronic  hater  and  avoid 
him. 

As  if  to  escape  this  result,  healthy  constitutions 
do  not  absorb  hate  into  the  system,  but  throw  it  off 
when  it  has  done  its  destined  work — that  of  bringing 
about  a  settled  course  of  action,  which  has  no  need 
to  goad  itself  on  by  ruminating  over  the  original 
incentives.  And  because  the  state  of  enmity,  like 
other  negative  feelings,  is  depressing  (though  like 
pain  it  may  be  highly  stimulating  to  immediate 
action),  there  is  a  certain  haste  to  get  rid  of  it,  even 
before  it  has  worked  out  its  natural  result.  Its 
sojourn  in  the  system  is  like  that  of  a  disease  which 
gradually  summons  out  the  forces  of  immunity  and 
rejection. 

And  further,  there  is  a  subconscious  logic  that 
often  works  against  it.  The  enemy,  in  the  course  of 
our  dealing  with  him,  seldom  fails  to  command  some 


ENMITY   AND   THE   ENEMY  55 

kind  of  respect,  if  only  because  he  is  our  enemy  and 
engages  our  powers  and  our  wits.  And  if  lie  has  a 
fighter's  honor,  out  of  this  respect  may  grow  a 
genuine  sympathy  (well  portrayed  in  Galsworthy's 
drama,  ''Strife")  such  as  appears  in  our  regard  for 
the  veterans  and  leaders  of  the  Confederacy.  "When 
this  happens,  enmity  has  generated  its  o^vn  anti- 
dote and  the  spirit  of  warfare  dies  a  natural  death. 

By  its  methods  of  conducting  the  present  war, 
Germany  has  removed  all  danger  that  our  fighting 
spirit  will  die  out  from  this  last-named  cause.  But 
the  primary  tendency  of  enmity  to  benumb  itself 
remains;  and  besides  this,  no  sentiment  is  so  ill- 
managed,  when  we  consider  its  public  expressions 
and  the  efforts  of  public  men  to  arouse  and  sus- 
tain it. 

The  slo^^^less  of  our  original  response  to  the  Eu- 
ropean situation  was  due  in  part  to  such  psycho- 
logical errors  on  the  part  of  our  reporters  and 
awakeners.  They  failed  to  allow  for  the  fact  that 
a  mental  constitution,  naturally  inhospitable  to 
active  enmity,  will  incline  to  place  the  alleged  male- 
factor in  the  same  class  with  other  distant  news- 
paper culprits  or  with  stage-villains,  semi-mythical, 
about  whom  nothing  need  be  done.  Belief  has  its 
momentum ;  and  we  had  been  favorably  disposed  to 
Germany  and  the  Germans.  Besides,  we  lacked,  as 
a  people,  the  historical  background,  the  sense  of  the 
deep-rooted  antagonisms,  the  trains  of  gunpowder 
laid  in  the  highways  of  European  history,  which 


56  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

could  have  given  the  original  acts  of  war  verisimili- 
tude. In  brief  we  lacked  the  ^'motivation,"  we 
were  not  supplied  with  the  motivation,  and  hence  we 
could  not  believe  the  criminal  as  black  as  he  was 
painted:  men's  eyes  have  to  get  used  to  this  kind 
of  darkness  also.  The  portrait  of  the  designing, 
unscrupulous,  spy-setting,  world-claiming,  treaty- 
wrecking,  humanity-spurning  Germany  seemed  a 
partisan  caricature.  No  doubt  we  were  helped  in 
this  feeling  by  our  o^vn  experience  with  party  poli- 
tics and  by  our  knowledge  that  the  facts  about  Ger- 
many came  chiefly  via  the  British  censor.  There 
must  be,  we  thought,  another  side :  no  modern  nation 
could  give  itself  to  a  policy  quite  so  evil,  so  cynical, 
so  quixotically  pretentious. 

"WTiile  this  incredulity  lasted,  the  inflooding 
stories  of  atrocities  were  received  with  a  divided 
mind.  With  the  rising  flood  of  wrath  against  the 
perpetrators  was  mingled  a  feeling  of  resentment 
toward  those  who  reported  them.  Later  circum- 
stantial accounts  of  the  treatment  of  Belgium  roused 
a  widespread  flame  of  hot  fury  (and  I  confess  that 
to  this  day  in  my  own  feelings  the  rape  of  Belgium 
outranks  all  the  long  list  of  Germany's  crimes) ; 
but  even  then,  uncertainty  about  the  proportions 
of  the  fact  stood  between  us  and  complete  belief: 
both  sides  had  not  been  heard ;  the  enemy  remained 
somewhat  less  than  a  full-fledged  reality. 

Our  portrait  makers  had  exceeded  the  rate  at 
which  our  belief  could  grow,  without  supplying  the 


ENMITY   AND   THE   ENEMY  57 

background  that  could  have  speeded  it.  They  also 
frequently  committed  the  error  of  giving  their  con- 
clusions instead  of  their  premises,  their  denuncia- 
tions and  epithets  instead  of  the  facts  on  which  they 
were  based.  And  occasionally  they  committed,  and 
still  commit,  the  error  of  de-humanizing  the  enemy. 
It  is  seldom  wise  to  call  the  enemy  the  names  he  fully 
deserves ;  it  is  never  wise  to  make  him  out  less  than 
human.  For  anger,  as  we  saw,  runs  in  the  opposite 
direction :  it  personifies  and  attributes  conscience  to 
even  inanimate  things.  If  we  de-humanize  the  foe 
we  remove  him  from  the  reach  of  instinctive  in- 
dignation.    Let  me  illustrate: 

Not  long  ago  I  listened  to  a  stirring  address  by  a 
French  lieutenant  in  the  course  of  which  he  de- 
scribed the  conduct  of  a  Prussian  officer  taken  pris- 
oner in  the  second  battle  of  Ypres,  the  battle  which 
has  the  distinction  of  witnessing  the  inaugural  use  in 
human  warfare  of  poison  gas.  The  first  victims 
of  this  German  invention  were  being  taken  back, 
contorted  with  agony,  to  the  dressing  stations,  where 
war-seasoned  surgeons  stood  appalled  and  help- 
less: seldom  even  in  this  war  has  there  been  such 
a  scene  of  anguish  and  despair.  The  Prussian  offi- 
cer, far  from  showing  a  sigii  of  human  concern, 
burst  into  derisive  laughter.  He  laughed!  and  he 
muttered  something  to  the  effect  that  the  British 
would  soon  learn  what  they  were  up  against.  Our 
speaker  made  his  comment  by  quoting  an  after- 
dinner  speech  of  Governor-General  von  Bissing  at 


58  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

a  Brussels  banquet  in  which  that  oflScer  referred 
with  indignant  surprise  to  the  continued  insub- 
ordination of  the  Belgian  populace:  ** These  Bel- 
gians," he  said,  **are  to  me  a  psychological  enigma." 
"Une  enigme  psychologique!",  exclaimed  the  lieu- 
tenant, ''it  is  Von  Bissing  and  his  like  that  are  the 
psychological  puzzle  to  us.  What  we  are  engaged 
in  is  not  a  war  between  nations :  it  is  a  war  between 
species, — line  guerre  des  especes." 

The  story  spoke  for  itself :  the  comment  weakened 
it.  For  to  place  the  enemy  in  a  different  species  is 
to  diminish  his  responsibility;  whereas  it  is  pre- 
cisely his  responsibility  that  sustains  the  condemna- 
tion. 

During  the  latter  part  of  August,  1917,  four  of 
us  were  being  conducted  through  the  devastated 
region  about  Noyon,  Chauny,  Roye,  and  Ham,  by 
M.  le  Capitaine  Jaubert.  There  were  the  murdered 
orchards,  the  choked  and  defiled  wells,  the  desolate 
acres  of  rubbish  that  a  few  weeks  past  wete  living 
cities, — everj^where  ghastly,  jagged  spindles  of  wall 
rising  like  mutely  w^eeping  ghosts  from  formless 
heaps  of  dust,  the  bones  of  vanished  architecture, — 
the  whole  wide  stretch  of  mother  earth  made  into  a 
Babylonish  desert,  not  by  time  but  by  human  de- 
sign and  toil.  I  waited  during  the  long  day  to  hear 
the  justified  anathema  from  the  captain's  lips.  His 
sole  comment  was,  ''You  see,  gentlemen,  there  was 
no  valid  military  excuse  for  this."  He  had  said  all 
that  could  be  put  into  words;  and  he  w^as  right  in 


ENMITY  AND   THE   ENEMY  59 

leaving  the  rest  to  our  own  silent  reaction.  What 
is  not  expressed  is  not  over-expressed,  nor  yet  under- 
expressed:  it  turns  inward,  and  feeds  the  perma- 
nent resolve. 

Among  the  fighters,  it  is  striking  that  so  little 
time,  com.paratively,  is  spent  in  swapping  atrocity- 
stories  and  in  inventing  fit  ejDithets.  They  have  a 
more  effective  way  of  expressing  their  judgment. 
What  carries  our  boys  over  the  top  with  a  vengeance 
is  not  a  warmed-up  hate,  and  certainly  not  rum,  but 
the  sufficient  knowledge  of  happenings  within  their 
OAvn  ken,  set  in  the  frame  of  their  understanding  of 
the  purposes  of  Potsdam. 

It  is  this  frame  that  is  the  important  thing.  That 
is  the  soul  of  the  enemy.  The  significance  of  every 
act  of  atrocity  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  fruit  of  a 
policy:  it  is  a  symptom,  and  a  symbol,  of  the  thing 
to  be  destroyed.  This  the  soldier  understands,  and 
comes  to  understand  more  deeply  with  experience. 

If  the  reason  for  war  lay  in  the  personal  inferi- 
ority of  the  enemy,  it  would  be  a  blow  to  morale  to 
find  specimens  of  him,  say  among  the  prisoners, 
very  much  the  same  as  ourselves.  When  one  sees 
in  the  individual  enemy  an  unquestionable  fellow- 
being,  the  impulse  to  treat  him  as  such  comes  to  the 
front,  and  commonly  drags  with  it  the  skeptical 
query,  "Why  have  I  been  trying  to  kill  this  fellow! 
What  is  this  monstrous  madness  of  war  that  sets 
at  one  another's  throats  so  many  millions  of  beings 
meant  by  nature  to  be  co-operators  if  not  friends  ? ' ' 


60  MORALE  AND   ITS  ENEMIES 

One  forgets  that  if  Lucifer  had  not  been  a  fellow- 
angel  there  could  have  been  no  such  thing  as  a  war 
in  heaven.  It  is  only  on  beings  like  ourselves  (within 
limits)  that  war  can  be  made — the  whole  question 
of  war  hangs  not  on  what  the  opponent  is,  but  on 
what  he  has  chosen. 

What  makes  humanity  is  the  power  of  the  human 
being  to  commit  himself  to  an  idea  or  principle  and 
to  stand  for  it,  so  that  the  conflict  of  the  principles 
becomes  a  conflict  of  the  men  who  stand  for  them. 
My  enemy  is  the  man  who  is  standing  for  what  I 
am  bound  to  regard  as  a  bad  principle ;  standing  for 
it,  not  in  theory  alone,  but  in  trying  to  build  it  into 
the  structure  of  human  behavior  generally.  And  to 
keep  that  false  idea  from  getting  a  hold  in  the  world, 
to  exclude  that  bad  principle  means,  on  account  of 
his  choice,  to  exclude  him.  This  much  we  shall 
always  have  in  common  with  all  human  beings,  the 
law  of  life,  to  stand  or  fall  by  the  validity  of  our 
choices.  If  I  make  a  sufficiently  vital  error  I  may 
have  a  chance  in  another  life,  but  not  in  this:  and 
the  same  holds  good  for  him.  The  object  of  warfare 
is  not  to  exclude  individual  souls  from  the  universe : 
it  is  to  keep  their  false  choices  from  polluting  the 
stream  of  history  from  which  our  descendants — and 
theirs — must  draw  their  life. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PTJRPOSES  OF  POTSDAM 

It  is  not  our  object  to  discuss  the  issues  of  the  war : 
our  work  is  to  deal  with  the  psychology  of  war- 
making.  But  having  spoken  of  the  purposes  of  Pots- 
dam as  the  chief  element  in  the  object  of  our  pres- 
ent hostility,  I  can  hardly  acquit  myself  of  sketching 
what  those  purposes  are,  especially  since  a  certain 
light  is  thrown  on  them  by  the  psychology  of  the 
peoples  at  war. 

There  are  people,  like  the  English,  who  seem  to 
be  chary  of  committing  themselves  to  defined  pur- 
poses of  any  sort,  afraid  to  desperation  of  becoming 
limited  or  doctrinaire  by  tying  up  to  a  particular 
principle  or  theory.  Nevertheless  they  speak  with 
no  uncertain  voice  against  the  policies  they  reject, 
and  so  indirectly  acknowledge  allegiance  to  what 
we  might  call  a  vague  public  creed,  none  the  lesa 
positive  and  real  because  they  decline  the  trouble 
and  risk  of  defining  it.  They  pursue,  if  you  like,  a 
political  vision  which  has  at  least  this  in  common 
with  the  visio  heatifica  of  the  mystics,  that  it  is  hard 
to  put  into  words.  Yet  it  helps  to  guide  the  decision 
of  particular  cases,  and  so  gradually  builds  up  a 
body  of  precedent,  the  common  law  of  the  British 
State  in  its  dealings  with  other  States.    It  has  the 

61 


62  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

advantages  and  the  disadvantages  of  its  unwritten 
constitution.  It  forms  no  exception  to  the  rule  that 
history  is  made  up  of  the  commitments  of  men  and 
nations  to  congenial  ideas,  commitments  more  or 
less  experimental  and  competitive. 

The  German  people  are  far  more  inclined  to  com- 
mit themselves  to  a  theory,  and  are  less  likely  to  be 
saved  by  the  vaguer  inner  monitors  (all  more  or 
less  intuitive;  such  as,  humor,  taste,  virtue,  etc.) 
from  the  excesses  of  the  intellect.  This  trait  is  due 
in  part  to  their  history.  As  late  comers  upon  the 
scene  of  European  culture,  they  have  made  head- 
way largely  by  skill  in  intelligent,  patient  analysis 
of  what  was  already  present,  and  by  unflinching 
courage  in  applying  their  analysis  in  their  own  way. 
Confidence  in  the  sufficiency  of  ''science"  to  find 
the  sure  path  to  everything  belonging  to  a  nation's 
life,  both  material  and  spiritual,  and  unreserved 
commitment  to  the  guiding  ideas  thus  scientifically 
found,  has  become  a  national  characteristic. 

Largely  because  of  this  German  trait,  this  war  is 
almost  an  ideal  case  of  warfare.  For  the  unreser- 
vedness  of  commitment  so  characteristic  of  their 
personal  behavior  is  equally  so  of  their  foreign 
policy.  The  principle  of  that  policy  is  not  unkno^^^l 
or  new  in  the  world ;  new  only  is  the  absence  of  com- 
punction with  which  it  has  been  followed  in  all  its 
consequences,  and  the  vividness  with  which  its 
nature  has  thus  become  evident  to  all  (other)  eyes. 
To  see  it  in  this  extreme  form  is  to  reject  it  in 


THE  PUEPOSES  OF  POTSDAM  63 

toto.  The  Prussian  has  thus  made  himself  the  ex- 
perimental subject  for  all  mankind;  and  this  war 
becomes  with  full  right  the  ccmse  celebre  of  modern 
history. 

What,  then,  is  this  principle?  Its  name  is  Real- 
politik,  the  very  plausible  principle  that  States  must 
be  guided  by  ''real"  rather  than  imaginary  goods 
and  considerations.  Its  nature,  however,  appears 
when  we  understand  that  the  "real"  goods  are  the 
solid  substances  of  economic  advantage  and  prestige, 
as  opposed  to  the  purely  imaginary  or  ideal  prop- 
erties of  honesty  and  good- will;  and  that  the  "real" 
considerations,  the  things  that  count  in  the  world, 
are  the  accomplished  facts,  as  opposed  to  the  fanci- 
ful and  quickly  forgotten  interest  in  the  methods  by 
which  facts  are  brought  about.  Realpolitik  is  an 
easy  and  quite  natural  generalization  from  human 
history,  when  read  with  a  cynical  eye.  And  the  pur- 
poses of  Potsdam  are  simply  the  resolute  embodi- 
ment of  Realpolitik  in  international  affairs.  It  is 
this — and  not  any  principle  of  the  internal  organi- 
zation of  States,  whether  autocratic  or  democratic 
— that  we  have  to  meet  and  overthrow.  It  is  the 
principle — paradoxical  enough,  when  we  look  closely 
— that  just  in  the  great  affairs  of  inter-state  rela- 
tions, principles  do  not  count. 

And  quite  consistently,  this  implies  that  for  all 
Germans  the  changing  of  the  facts  of  the  world 
nearer  to  the  interests  of  the  German  State  is  the 
one  real  and  valid  end  which  justifies,  nay,  makes  a 


64  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

duty  of,  every  means  which  will  work  toward  it :  and 
that  inasmuch  as  it  can  hardly  be  expected  that 
other  nations  will  accept  this  end,  they  may  as  well 
be  treated  as  enemies,  without  compunction  or  argu- 
ment, when  the  day  comes  to  assert  the  German  will. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  principle  that  in  the  long  run 
force  is  what  must  command  the  outcome :  and  that 
a  sufficiently  powerful  State  can  quite  well  afford  to 
make  its  nest  in  the  midst  of  a  world  of  cowed  and 
indignant  enemies,  certain  that  it  controls  the  fear 
if  not  the  respect  of  the  rest  of  mankind. 

During  the  period  of  the  Belgian  deportations,  in 
the  winter  1916-1917,  I  had  a  long  conversation  on 
the  subject  with  a  conspicuous  representative  of 
Germanism  in  this  country,  since  deceased.  I  ex- 
pressed my  belief  that  quite  apart  from  the  ques- 
tion whether  Germany  had  the  power  to  do  as  she 
liked  with  the  Belgians,  she  could  ill  afford  to  defy 
the  common  judg-ment  of  neutral  nations.  He  re- 
plied (and  I  think  I  recall  his  exact  words),  ''We 
have  about  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  opinion 
of  neutral  nations  is  not  worth  considering." 

I  still  doubt  whether  he,  or  the  German  Govern- 
ment, had  weighed  the  cost  of  attracting  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world  to  its  worst  qualities.  Every 
nation,  like  every  person,  has  its  defects :  for  which, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  it  needs,  and  re- 
ceives, the  indulgence  of  neighborly  good-will.  To 
break  these  usual  relations  deliberately  not  alone 
dares  to  dispense  with  this  indulgence:  but,  since 


THE  PURPOSES  OF  POTSDAM  65 

enmity  is  selective,  such  an  act  invites  the  foe  and 
all  history  to  judge  the  offending  people  and  state 
by  its  evil  sides  primarily.  Nothing  human  is  so 
good  that  it  can  brave  out  this  verdict  in  cold 
blood.  The  opinion  of  posterity,  never  before  so 
consciously  defied  as  by  the  Germanic  powers  in  the 
making  and  the  conduct  of  this  war,  is  still  greater 
than  the  greatest  political  force. 

Frederick  the  Great  boasted  that  he  could  always 
find  some  pedant  to  justify  what  he  had  done.  He 
was  quite  right  in  thinking  that  he  could  always 
find  some  one  to  try  it.  But  history  has  a  long, 
shrewd  look  at  the  works  of  men,  and  Frederick 
and  his  boast  are  to-day  on  no  pedestal  outside  of 
Germany,  and  probably  not  within.  For  the  chief 
danger  in  defying  ** neutral"  opinion,  is  that  it  is 
the  opinion  of  one's  own  soul,  as  it  becomes  clear. 
The  contempt  of  history's  judgment  is  the  wholly 
futile  and  pitiful  pose  of  despising  one's  own  con- 
science. The  deeds  of  Germany  have  condemned 
Germans  of  these  and  later  times  to  an  unmeasured 
moral  suffering,  which  will  be  none  the  less  real  for 
all  the  Tendenzschriften  of  their  more  obsequious 
scholarship. 

Internationalism  had  been  on  a  precarious  foot- 
ing prior  to  this  war :  it  was  never  known  whether  a 
public  crime  in  one  part  of  the  world  would  or  would 
not  concern  remoter  parts.  The  theory  of  interven- 
tion was  closely  restricted.    Germany  nourished  the 


66  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ideal  of  unconcern,  the  localization  of  interest,  the 
non-existence  of  a  genuine  international  moral  sub- 
stance. She  built  her  plans  on  the  weakness  of  a 
world  conscience.  We  hesitated  long:  at  last  we 
cast  the  die  which  meant  that  the  world's  business 
is  our  business  now  and  henceforth:  we  acknowl- 
edged ourselves  co-responsible  with  others  for  the 
peace  and  order  and  justice  of  the  planet.  We  re- 
fused any  longer  to  ask  the  murderer's  question, 
Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?  With  that  decision,  the 
cause  of  Germany  was  lost;  for  with  that  decision 
the  world-conununity  became  a  fact.  This  earth 
has  consciously  started  up  the  long  path  of  a  mutual 
effort  for  a  universal  justice. 

This  is  the  aim  of  the  war :  this  is  the  frame  within 
which  all  the  special  acts  of  our  enemy  can  be  placed 
and  understood.  The  striking  arm  of  the  American 
soldier  or  of  the  American  nation  cannot  be  nerved 
for  its  long  task  by  any  less  conception  of  its  mean- 
ing. It  is  a  cause  whose  motive  has  no  need  to  feed 
on  personal  hatred;  for  it  cannot  be  broken  or  dis- 
turbed by  any  discoveries  of  personal  worth  in  its 
avowed  foes.  *' Strike  for  your  altars  and  your 
fires"  was  the  ancient  motive  of  tribal  battles.  Now 
it  is  *  *  Strike  for  the  altar  of  a  new-born  human  hope, 
— the  common  guardianship  of  a  common  right." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  MOTE  IN  OUR  OWN  EYE 

When  the  issue  of  a  fight  is  simply  "which  of  us  two 
is  the  better  man"  it  has  the  advantage  of  provok- 
ing no  inner  haltings.  If  the  issue  of  war  is  simply 
Greek  versus  Persian,  it  has  the  same  clean-cutness : 
everything  you  want  to  defeat  is  on  one  side,  every- 
thing you  want  to  have  win  is  on  the  other.  That  is 
one  good  reason  why  those  who  are  doing  the  fight- 
ing find  a  simple  sign  for  the  whole  practical  issue : 
it  is  Ourselves  versus  the  Kaiser.  There  are  no 
shades  of  virtue  or  vice  to  be  measured :  there  is  no 
problem  of  apportioning  the  guilt  in  the  origin  of 
the  contest,  two-thirds  to  one  side,  one-third  to  the 
other.  The  Kaiser  is  a  concrete  fact,  and  for  pres- 
ent purposes  all  of  a  piece:  his  one  salient  attribute 
is  that  he  is  our  enemy  and  must  be  beaten. 

But  the  moment  an  issue  is  stated  in  general 
terms,  as  Law  versus  Realpolitik,  or  Autocracy  ver- 
sus Democracy,  the  line  of  cleavage  refuses  to  local- 
ize itself  strictly  and  exclusively  in  ''No  Man's 
Land. ' '  There  are  remnants  of  Realpolitik,  and  of 
the  autocratic  principle,  in  our  own  public  life :  the 
beam  may  be  this  time  in  the  enemy 's  eye,  but  there 
is  a  good-sized  mote  in  our  own.  A  sense  of  imper- 
fect rectitude  on  the  point  in  question  may  steal  in 

67 


68  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

and  confuse  or  hamper  the  good-will  to  strike. 
"First,"  one  is  prone  to  reflect,  all  subconsciously 
perhaps, — "First,  we  should  clean  our  own  house; 
and  then,  being  above  reproach,  we  can  go  whole- 
heartedly for  the  enemy." 

The  enemy,  furthermore,  is  not  slow  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  these  subcurrents  which  subtly  lame  the 
strength  of  the  fighting  arm.  Fighting  for  democ- 
racy, are  we:  then  what  of  the  monarchs  and  em- 
perors on  our  side?  Has  any  enthusastic  applause 
for  the  great  phrase  of  President  Wilson  come  from 
Japan?  Or  if  the  emphasis  of  our  principle  is  put 
on  the  liberties  of  small  nations,  we  shall  be  ques- 
tioned about  the  status  of  Ireland  and  of  Greece 
within  the  coalition.  One  may  find  good  answers  to 
all  these  questions ;  but  meantime  the  question  itself 
has  done  its  work;  it  has  deducted  something  from 
the  complete  conviction  behind  the  blow.  No  doubt 
a  thinking  army  and  nation  are  better  for  fighting 
purposes  than  a  non-thinking  army  and  nation ;  but 
the  risks  to  morale  of  stating  the  issues  in  terms  of 
principles,  instead  of  in  terms  of  peoples,  is  very 
actual.  There  is  no  escape  from  the  inner  reaction 
of  the  principles  against  ourselves. 

I  am  speaking  for  the  moment  as  though  we  had 
a  choice  whether  to  state  our  ov,m  war  issue  as  a 
matter  of  principle  or  not.  Issues  undergo  a  gradual 
change  of  character  as  wars  wear  on,  and  it  is  con- 
ceivably possible  to  yield  to  the  psychological  drift 
toward  primeval  simplicity,  until  the  war  become 


T 


THE   MOTE   IN   OUR   OWN   EYE  69 

to  our  minds  a  struggle  between  races.  One  of  the 
reproaches  held  against  American  critics  of  Ger- 
many in  the  early  months  of  the  war  by  German 
sympathizers  in  America  was  that  these  critics  tried 
to  make  the  war  appear  a  moral  issue.  ''This  is  not 
a  moral  question :  it  is  an  inevitable  conflict  between 
expanding  races.  We  do  not  blame  Russia  that  it 
grows  and  wishes  to  expand  southw^ard ;  neither  are 
we  Germans  to  blame  that  we  grow  and  need  to  ex- 
pand eastward.  This  clash  of  nations  due  to  the 
natural  forces  of  expansion  is  one  of  the  great 
tragedies  of  history;  but  there  is  nothing  for  it 
except  to  fight  it  out.  It  is  the  struggle  for  sur- 
vival, not  a  question  of  right  and  wrong."  So  I 
have  been  personally  assured;  so  we  have  all  been 
assured.  And  so  we  might  conceivably  regard  the 
present  alignment  as  the  inevitable  clash  between 
expanding  Germany  and  the  rest  of  the  world  threat- 
ened by  her  ambitions.  "Has  not  Germany  as  good 
a  formal  right  to  an  empire  as  Great  Britain?" 
I  asked  of  an  Englishman  who  had  just  said, 
"If  it  were  not  for  the  Empire,  I  would  not  care  to 
be  an  Englishman."  "Certainly,"  he  replied,  "I 
have  never  doubted  her  formal  right  to  an  Empire. 
But  we  do  not  propose  that  she  shall  have  one.  .  .  . 
She  is  not  fit  to  have  one. "  If  he  had  stopped  before 
the  last  sentence,  he  would  have  left  the  issue  one 
of  undebatable  and  wholly  primitive  simplicity,  Ger- 
many's I-will  versus  Britain's  Thou-shalt-not. 
But  so  to  state  the  case  is  evidently  at  once  to 


70  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

justify  the  whole  method  of  Realpolitik,  and  to  play 
false  to  all  the  genuine  purposes  of  Great  Britain 
and  of  ourselves.  And  the  only  alternative  is  to 
hold  to  the  original  view  that  beneath  all 
clashes  of  will  there  are  clashes  of  principle; 
that  the  way  forward  is  to  insist,  against 
whatever  difficulty,  that  the  thought  and  conscience 
of  the  race  shall  gradually  penetrate  all  conflicts 
until  we  find  their  meaning  in  terms  of  ideas.  To 
do  otherwise  is  to  give  up  the  tendency  of  social 
evolution  toward  a  more  thoughtful,  lawful,  and 
consistent  world ;  it  is  to  accept  the  defeat  of  a  moral 
control  of  history  at  the  hand  of  the  cruder  and 
simpler  fact.  It  is  to  give  Germany  the  right.  For 
how  much  of  German  life  and  culture  can  be  under- 
stood as  an  expression  of  weariness  of  spiritual 
evolution !  In  her  adoption  of  skepticism  and  agnos- 
ticism, reason  has  turned  upon  its  own  work  to  limit 
the  scope  of  reason's  conquests;  in  her  espousal  of 
Realpolitik,  law  has  turned  upon  the  growth  of  law 
and  has  said,  thus  far,  and  no  farther ;  in  the  moral 
cynicism  which  underlies  all  this,  and  which  thinks 
itself  the  more  enlightened  view  of  things,  spiritual 
ambition  has  turned  against  its  ovm  natural  free- 
dom and  has  made  itself  a  slave  to  material  interest 
and  hard  fact. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  much  of  this  suicidal  hostility 
of  the  spirit  to  the  spiritual  element  is  due  to  the 
thinness  and  abstraction  of  much  of  the  prevalent 
talk  about  principles.    Abstract  idealism  is  a  poor 


THE   MOTE   IN   OUR  OWN   EYE  71 

solution  of  the  problems  that  confront  **real"  states- 
manship; and  there  are  brands  of  Christianity- 
known  to  everyone  that  would  drive  any  able-headed 
man  to  Realpolitik  for  a  breath  of  vital  air.  What- 
ever the  principles  at  stake  in  this  war,  the  answer 
to  Realpolitik  is  not  to  be  found  in  a  reaction  to  the 
older  formulae  from  which  Realpolitik  is  itself  a 
reaction. 

But  the  adequate  principles  must  be  found,  will  be 
found,  are  being  found.  And  this  means  that  we 
accept  the  consequences, — whatever  critical  light 
these  principles  throw  upon  our  own  social  order. 
And  we  accept  also  the  task  of  dealing  with  the 
apparent  argument  that  accompanies  this  criticism, 
that  being  imperfect  ourselves  we  ought  to  go  easy 
in  the  fighting.    The  task  should  not  be  a  hard  one. 

The  premise  of  the  argument  is  that  we  ought  to 
fight  only  what  we  ourselves  are  free  from, — or,  in 
effect,  that  only  saints  and  angels  have  any  right 
to  fight.  This  is  a  natural  misreading  of  the  senti- 
ment that  has  permeated  the  Christian  world,  "Let 
him  that  is  without  sin  among  you  cast  the  first 
stone."  There  is  a  vein  of  pacifism  in  this  misread- 
ing that  needs  not  so  much  to  be  rebuked  as  to  be 
explained. 

The  point  is,  I  take  it,  that  issues  not  raised  by 
ourselves  have  to  be  met  as  they  arise,  and  where 
they  arise.  If  it  is  we  ourselves  who  are  raising 
issues,  it  is  desirable  to  make  sure  that  one's  own 


72  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

house  is  clean  before  attacking  the  condition  of  one's 
neighbor's  house.  If  history  makes  the  issue  for 
us,  we  have  to  decide  where  we  stand  on  that;  and 
then,  if  we  are  honest,  accept  the  consequences  for 
ourselves.  We  should  have  every  reason  to  feel 
shame  and  hesitancy  in  war  if  having  taken  up  the 
cry  of  the  rights  of  small  nations  we  rode  over  any 
such  rights  without  compunction,  or  harbored  any 
personal  profits  from  old  wrongs.  Even  so,  I  am 
not  sure  that  we  would  be  justified  in  letting  the 
call  for  protection  pass  by  without  response,  on  the 
ground  that  we  have  sins  of  our  own  we  want  to 
hold  to  for  a  while  longer. 

We  must  accept  the  logic  of  what  we  do  abroad 
as  applied  to  what  we  do  at  home.  But  the  demand 
that  w^e  attend  to  what  we  have  to  remedy  at  home 
first,  must  sometimes  be  recognized  for  what  it  is, 
a  hurdle  deliberately  thro^Mi  into  the  path  of  the 
runner.  It  is  natural  that  the  principles  applied  in 
small  groups  work  their  way  outward;  tyranny  in 
private  life  will  tend  to  follow  the  individual  into 
his  public  relations,  and  conversely,  liberality  at 
home  will  have  a  tendency  to  carry  itself  over  into 
business  and  political  practice.  But  it  is  also  a  natu- 
ral law  that  public  principles  ivorh  their  ivay  in- 
ward; and  the  State,  in  some  ways  behind  the  pri- 
vate standard  of  morals,  is  in  other  ways  in  the  lead. 
Liberality  in  politics  did  in  fact  precede  by  some 
centuries  the  regime  of  equality  in  the  family:  the 
issue  was  first  raised  in  the  public  life.    And  so  it  is 


THE  MOTE  IN   OUR   OWN  EYE  73 

with  the  issue  which  German  thoroughness  has  made 
so  clear  in  the  international  order :  the  very  clarity 
and  vigor  with  which  we  rise  to  it  will  carry  many 
an  internal  reform  past  the  obstacle  on  which  it  has 
been  hanging,  simply  because  we  see  that  the  prin- 
ciple is  the  same,  and  we  are  willing  to  follow  it 
where  it  leads.  We  shall  take  these  things  up  in 
their  order;  but  the  war  must  be  settled  noiv. 

Meantime,  we  may  freely  acknowledge  that  the 
principle  of  Realpolitik  is  not  peculiar  to  Germany. 
It  has  shown  its  head  more  or  less  mixed  and  dis- 
guised in  the  practises  of  all  nations.  It  would  not 
be  hard  to  mention  spots  in  our  own  public  life 
which  are  condemned  by  what  we  now  profess  before 
the  world ;  and  with  some  of  these  spots  we  may  and 
must  deal  even  now. 

The  President  has  justly  called  our  attention  to 
lynching  as  an  example  of  what  we  are  warring 
against.  Where  people  think  the  law  remiss  or 
slow,  there  is  a  natural  anti-law  feeling  and  an  im- 
pulse to  revert  to  fact.  It  is  a  method  which  clearly 
does  nothing  to  make  law  more  adequate  to  its  task ; 
it  is  Realpolitik. 

Perhaps  the  best  example  of  Kaiserism  at  home  is 
the  spirit  of  what  is  kno^vn  as  profiteering.  Its 
theory  is,  when  you  see  a  chance  for  yourself,  take 
it;  and  the  wider  interest  be  damned.  The  social 
world  is  not  yet  a  place  of  complete  justice  in  the 
distributing  of  wealth;  there  are  accidental  heap- 


74  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ings  here  and  there;  the  race  is  sometimes  to  the 
strong,  and  sometimes  merely  to  the  fortunately 
placed;  instead  of  blaming  the  man  who  seizes  the 
chance  that  knocks  at  his  door,  people  are  likely  to 
regard  him  as  a  fool  who  fails  to  do  so.  Sympathy 
for  the  slow  is  not  vivid;  and  in  the  speed  of  liv- 
ing, men  judge  much  by  results  and  seldom  scruti- 
nize methods  very  closely.  "Everybody  does  it; 
and  if  I  don't  look  out  for  myself,  nobody  will  look 
out  for  me";  this  is  a  philosophy  which  men  can 
easily  get  from  a  shrewd  reading  of  the  times, — the 
times  preceding  to-day.  ''If  the  Government  will 
let  me  alone  for  a  year,  I  don't  care  what  it  does 
next;  I  will  have  mine  by  that  time,"  said  one  such 
philosopher.  Such  men  do  nothing  to  make  the  lack- 
ing social  justice  grow;  they  fail  to  realize  that 
this  irresponsible  self-seeking,  the  whole  worth  of 
whose  gains  is  made  by  the  good-will  of  the  ex- 
ploited community,  has  suddenly  become  out  of 
date.  And  why?  Because  the  community,  because 
labor,  has  been  quick  to  see  that  it  is  nothing  but 
Prussianism  in  the  economic  sphere;  and  they  will 
fight  against  the  one  only  as  they  at  the  same  time 
fight  against  the  other. 

And  it  will  be  well  for  the  foresight  of  labor  if  it 
sees  the  case  so  clearly  that  it  will  cut  from  its  o^vn 
program  the  tendency  to  fight  profiteering  by  profit- 
eering of  its  own,  thus  tying  its  o^vn  hands  in  the 
fight  for  a  better  order  of  justice  by  its  eagerness 
not  to  be  backward  in  getting  '  *  its  o^vn. ' ' 


THE   MOTE   IN    OUR   OWN   EYE  75 

Because  this  issue  will  not  be  postponed,  but  must 
be  met  and  is  being  met  from  day  to  day  while  the 
war  is  being  fought,  profiteering,  whether  on  the  part 
of  labor  or  capital,  must  be  recognized  as  the  great- 
est single  menace  to  our  fighting  strength  at  home, 
the  greatest  single  source  of  flagging  morale.  Wher- 
ever it  is  present  it  sicklies  the  faith  of  the  knowing 
ones  that  any  sound  act  can  come  from  a  social  body 
thus  inwardly  diseased.  "We  are  willing  to  work 
and  to  fight  to  the  end  to  defeat  Prussianism;  but 
we  are  not  willing  to  give  an  ounce  of  our  labor  nor 
a  drop  of  our  blood  to  enrich  private  individuals ' ' : 
thus  labor  has  stated  its  judgment  time  and  again  on 
the  floor  of  Commons,  and  elsewhere.  And  the 
farther-sighted  men  of  affairs  have  seen  that  by  the 
very  nature  of  the  war-issue,  the  profiteer  is  play- 
ing the  traitor  not  alone  to  the  public  interest,  but 
to  the  cause  of  business  itself,  in  the  public  judg- 
ment. For  the  public  is  alert  to  the  point  that  it 
cannot  and  need  not  continue  to  sanction  in  busi- 
ness that  spirit  of  ignoring  the  interests  of  others 
which  is  being  banished  from  international  affairs 
on  the  fields  of  France. 

Not  only  this,  but  never  in  the  history  of  business 
has  there  been  such  an  impulse  to  sacrifice  for  the 
common  cause  on  the  part  of  men  of  power  and 
wealth.  The  profiteering  that  exists  is  local;  the 
leaping  forward  to  give  is  general,  as  if  welcoming 
the  opening  of  a  new  era.  The  external  logic  has 
worked  its  way  inward;  and  the  great  fact  of  so- 


76  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ciety  to-day  is  that  men  generally  can  believe  in 
possibilities  of  which  they  had  formerly  given  up 
hope.  Nothing  could  go  farther  to  confirm  the 
morale  of  the  nation  than  to  fix  attention  on  the  con- 
spicuous examples  of  the  new  spirit  rather  than 
on  the  examples  of  private  greed  which  can  always 
be  found.  For  the  new  spirit  can  be  confirmed  only 
by  being  recognized  and  built  upon.* 

Lynching  and  profiteering,  then,  have  felt  the 
repercussion  of  the  public  campaign  against  Prus- 
sianism.    But  we  may  say  with  equal  truth  that  we 

*A  good  example  of  it  may  be  seen  in  the  action  of  the  National 
Federation  of  Millers  in  giving  up  by  voluntary  agreement  of  prac- 
tically the  entire  trade  the  enormous  profits  being  wafted  into 
their  hands  by  the  abnormal  course  of  events  quite  without  their 
deliberate  manipulation.  The  milling  business  has  l)een  rated  as 
third  in  volume  in  the  United  States ;  and  its  output  has  been,  under 
existing  conditions,  not  less  important  in  winning  the  war  than 
that  of  the  steel,  coal,  and  copper  industries.  They  were  producing 
on  a  rapidly  and  automatically  rising  market  when  Mr.  Hoover 
was  appointed  administrator ;  and  at  once  their  National  Federa- 
tion authorized  a  committee  to  offer  their  co-operation.  It  was  a 
moment  in  which  only  immediate  and  voluntary  action  would  have 
met  the  emergency  of  the  coming  winter;  and  the  administration 
invited  and  accepted  plans  for  voluntary  co-operation  proposed 
by  the  millers'  committee.  These  plans,  limiting  profits  to  25 
cents  per  barrel,  have  been  steadily  and  loyally  administered  by 
a  joint  committee  on  which  are  serving  a  number  of  the  most 
prominent  millers  of  the  country  who,  to  do  their  work  more  effect- 
ively, have  not  alone  given  up  active  connection  with  their  own 
mills,  but  have  disposed  of  their  stock.  This  has  been  done  by 
Mr.  Bell  of  the  Washburn-Crosby  Mills,  Mr.  Eckhart  of  Chicago, 
Mr.  Mennel  of  Toledo,  and  others. 

Steel  interests,  brass  interests,  copper,  and  lead  interests  have 
made  concessions  to  the  situation ;  and  it  may  fairly  be  said  of 
them  that  they  have  taken  less  profit  than  they  might  have  done, 
though  under  present  conditions  this  is  only  to  say,  in  many  cases, 
that  they  have  allowed  enormous  profits  to  be  reduced  to  the  dimen- 
sions of  only  huge  profits.  But  the  action  of  the  millers,  which 
went  far  to  tide  over  the  distress  of  the  past  winter  in  Europe,  is  an 
act  of  genuine  sacrifice,  and  the  sort  of  act  which  will  go  far  to 
destroy  at  home  what  we  oppose  abroad. 


THE  MOTE  IN   OUR  OWN  EYE  77 

are  fighting  cynicism,  or  selfishness,  or  materialism, 
and  at  once,  the  inner  corollaries  of  our  under- 
taking widen  without  measure.  In  a  way,  all  evil 
is  akin,  and  there  is  little  logical  excuse  for  singling 
out  one  evil  amongst  many  as  the  particular  cousin 
of  the  enemy's  idea  that  we  must  eliminate  from  our- 
selves. There  is  none  of  them  that  we  can  defend; 
and  there  is  none  of  them  that  does  not  ally  us  more 
or  less  directly  with  the  enemy. 

But  this  only  reveals  the  truism  that  in  a  world 
guilty  in  many  ways  a  perfect  morale  is  unobtain- 
able; that  in  proportion  to  our  thoughtfulness  the 
blow  aimed  in  one  direction  will  bring  to  conscious- 
ness the  necessity  of  blows  aimed  in  various  other 
quarters,  with  a  certain  tendency  to  confusion  of 
purpose.  This  confusion  must  remain  until  we  see 
the  necessity  of  history  which  singles  out  for  us  the 
point  upon  which  our  energy  must  be  directed.  We 
learn  in  time  the  error  of  faltering  in  the  pursuit  of 
the  present  business  because  there  are  other  wars 
to  fight.  And  we  learn  the  wisdom  of  accepting  the 
priority  of  the  political  issue;  for  what  men  adopt 
in  their  political  life  they  build  into  the  common 
moral  substratum  for  all  their  living. 


CHAPTER  IX 

STATE-BLINDNESS 

There  is  an  old  tale  of  a  man  in  the  East  who  had 
given  up  nearly  everything  in  the  service  of  his 
god,  and  whose  devotion  earned  him  an  early  death. 
In  his  last  hours  this  man  found  this  his  deity,  who 
had  hitherto  seemed  as  real  to  him  as  any  living 
man,  suddenly  withdrew  into  obscurity  until  he 
could  no  longer  be  distinguished  from  the  phantoms 
of  his  imagination.  ''My  God,"  he  exclaimed,  as  the 
scenes  of  his  pain-filled  and  seemingly  futile  life- 
time crowded  his  dying  mind,  *'my  God,  why  hast 
thou  forsaken  me?" 

This  species  of  doubt  is  not  confined  to  the  re- 
ligious. It  is  particularly  at  home  on  the  battlefield, 
where  men  are  led  to  the  shambles  by  a  very  similar 
devotion  to  an  equally  invisible  and  elusive  being, — 
the  State.  All  the  realistic  reporters  of  the  sol- 
dier's mind,  men  like  McGill  and  Barbusse,  echo  the 
horrible  sense  of  emptiness,  disillusion,  deserted- 
ness,  futility,  that  supervenes  as  the  question  presses 
home  unanswered,  ''What  is  it  that  I  am  serving?" 

And  not  on  the  battlefield  alone,  but  wherever  men 
and  women  are  asked  to  make  large  sacrifice  "for 
the  nation,"  they  are  subject  to  a  checking  of  im- 
pulsive patriotism,  because  that  being  has  a  way  of 

78 


STATE-BLINDNESS  79 

escaping  the  grip  of  our  minds,  even  more,  perhaps, 
than  that  other  being,  the  enemy,  whom  we  oppose. 
In  the  present  war,  I  judge  this  the  most  serious  of 
the  insidious  leaks  in  national  morale. 

For  it  may  be  taken,  I  believe,  as  a  peculiarity  of 
this  war  that  there  are  arrayed  under  the  banners  of 
various  national  States  thousands  who  question  the 
right  of  national  States  to  exist,  together  with  other 
thousands  to  whom  the  words  ''France,"  "Eng- 
land," etc.,  are  but  names  for  aggregates  of  indi- 
viduals, words  standing  for  nothing  unitary  and 
real.  They  find  themselves  strangely  offering  their 
lives  for  ''France,"  for  "America," — and  yet  with- 
out any  adequate  interest  in  these  masses  of  indi- 
vidual Frenchmen  or  Americans :  confronted  with  a 
random  group  of  them,  the  "cash  value"  of  these 
national  names,  they  would  see  little  reason  w^hy 
they  should  die  for  their  welfare. 

What  imagination  presents  as  the  object  of  all 
these  sacrifices  is  something  over  and  above  the  sum 
of  the  persons  in  the  State — a  glorified  being,  as  we 
said :  yet,  in  cold  blood,  is  this  symbolic  figure  any- 
thing more  than  an  emotional  projection  of  the 
group-instinct,  easily  capable  of  being  too  super- 
stitiously  regarded,  even  of  becoming  an  obstacle  in 
the  path  of  a  wider  spirit  of  humanity?  These  are 
intellectual  considerations,  no  doubt,  which  the  war 
spirit  has  shown  itself  strong  enough  to  sweep 
away ;  but  just  because  men  come  to  realize  that  they 
have  been  affected  by  feeling,  by  ' '  patriotism, ' '  they 


80  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

are  vulnerable  to  the  attack  of  these  questions  when 
they  return,  as  they  inevitably  do. 

Prior  to  the  war,  M.  Gustave  Herve,  speaking  as 
he  thought  for  French  socialism,  said : 

"We  are  anti-patriot  internationalists,  and  have 
in  no  degree  a  love  for  the  mother  country.  Hence 
we  do  not  know  what  national  honor  is.  The  politi- 
cal superiority  of  the  French  Government  over  the 
German  is  so  slight  .  .  .  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference to  us  whether  we  are  French  or  German. 
We  have  thus  decided  to  answer  an  order  of  mobili- 
zation by  a  general  strike,  of  reservists  at  first,  and 
then  finally  by  insurrection.  As  for  the  defense  of 
our  mother  country,  we  will  give  neither  one  drop  of 
blood  nor  one  square  centimeter  of  our  skin."* 

We  take  it  as  greatly  to  the  honor  of  M.  Herve 
and  of  French  socialism  generally  that  this  view  of 
things  was  promptly  discarded  at  the  call  of  war. 
But  the  practical  repudiation  has  not  yet  been  fol- 
lowed by  the  repudiation  of  the  principle.  And 
while  such  views  have  not  gathered  so  vigorous  a 
following  in  America  it  is  not  so  clear  a^  it  might  be 
that  we  have  a  substantial  answer  to  them.  Some 
years  prior  to  the  war,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  made  a 
rapid  tour  of  this  country,  publishing  his  impres- 
sions in  a  volume  called  ''The  Future  in  America." 
One  of  his  striking  comments  was  that  as  a  people 
we  are  ''State-blind."  As  a  matter  of  fact  our  poli- 
tical upbringing  has  done  much  to  make  us  so. 

We  are,  in  the  first  place,  individualists  by  con- 
viction.   We  regard  the  State  as  an  agency  existing 

•Quoted  by  Sir  Martin  Conway.  "The  Crowd  in  Peace  and  in  War." 


STATE-BLINDNESS  81 

not  for  its  own  sake,  but  to  serve  us.  It  derives 
all  its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  It 
is  there,  like  other  agencies,  to  do  certain  specific 
things  because  we  want  them  done:  it  has  no  in- 
trinsic rights  of  its  own,  not  to  speak  of  divine 
right. 

And  in  the  second  place,  we  have  a  feeling  that 
"the  State  governs  best  that  governs  least."  We 
do  not  want  to  be  reminded  of  the  State  at  every 
turn  by  omnipresent  officers,  soldiers,  ceremonies. 
We  want  to  treat  it  like  a  good  digestion, — and  for- 
get it. 

On  the  whole  we  are  in  a  state  of  mind  such  that 
if  any  one  says  to  us  that  a  workman  in  one  country 
has  more  in  common  with  a  workman  in  another 
country  than  he  has  with  his  own  employer  merely 
as  fellow-citizen  of  the  State,  we  are  quite  prepared 
to  believe  it.  After  all,  what  have  we  in  common, 
merely  as  fellow-citizens?  Various  respectable  so- 
cial theories  are  afloat  among  us,  and  not  a  little  in- 
fluential, to  the  effect  that  the  economic  tie,  the  com- 
munity of  interest  represented  by  the  common  craft 
or  industry  or  profession,  is  the  fundamental  social 
cohesive;  and  that  the  political  bond  is  quite  sec- 
ondary, having  only  a  relative,  changing,  and  per- 
haps vanishing  importance. 

If  I  say,  then,  that  our  patriotism,  fervent  as  it  is, 
is  yet  essentially  impulsive  and  a  degree  sentimental, 
I  believe  I  speak  sober  truth.  We  are  profoundly 
loyal  to  something;  but  we  very  dimly  understand 


82  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

what  we  are  loyal  to,  and  are  perhaps  more  than  a 
little  dubious  about  it  in  the  bottom  of  our  hearts. 
Mr.  Wells  was  not  far  wrong  in  saying  that  we  are 
State-blind. 

In  a  war  in  which  one  fights  for  "the  rights  of 
small  nations  everywhere"  (among  other  objects), 
this  uncertainty  about  what  the  State  is  constitutes 
a  serious  weak  spot  in  our  moral  armor.  In  more 
than  one  sense,  "patriotism  is  not  enough";  it  needs 
a  justification.  It  is  evident  that  neither  systems  of 
police  nor  administrative  arrangements — if  this  is 
all — are  worth  the  loss  of  a  man.  The  economic 
common-interest — if  this  is  the  chief  meaning  of  po- 
litical society — can  justify  no  sacrifice  but  that  of 
money. 

But  these  are  not  the  substance  of  the  State. 
The  economic  cement  has  never  yet  of  itself  effected 
a  living  social  union ;  it  is  of  a  kind  that  crumbles 
when  it  is  dry.  If  it  seems  to  unite  men,  it  is  be- 
cause it  is  mixed  with  something  else ;  and  it  is  this 
of  which  we  should  like  to  catch  a  glimpse,  though 
like  all  other  great  and  permanent  things  it  tends 
to  retreat  into  subconsciousness,  and  is  at  a  dis- 
advantage for  being  shown  and  recognized.  Let  me 
make  the  attempt,  nevertheless,  to  conjure  up  in  a 
few  words  what  seems  to  me  most  tangible  in  the 
entity  which  we  call  the  State. 

1.  We  can  readily  unravel  the  entire  mass  of 
groupings   called   society  into   two   fairly   distinct 


STATE-BLINDNESS  83 

kinds :  the  private  life  on  one  side  having  its  center 
in  the  family  and  branching  out  into  friendly,  fra- 
ternal, and  "social"  groupings  in  the  narrower 
sense;  and  then  the  public  life,  impersonal  and  en- 
terprising, having  its  center  in  the  trade  or  pro- 
fessional activity,  in  which  one  is  valued  for  his 
yield  and  not  primarily  for  his  personal  quality.  A 
man's  day  usually  dips  into  both  these  spheres  and 
alternates  between  them;  he  has  his  local  root,  or 
home,  and  he  has  his  roving,  venturesome,  specula- 
tive career,  and  each  of  these  serves  the  other, — 
neither  one  alone  can  claim  to  possess  the  real  self 
of  the  man. 

We  should  perhaps  place  the  State  at  once  as  a 
part  of  the  public  rather  than  of  the  private  life 
of  a  man :  and  yet  the  State,  which  once  had  a  form 
resembling  the  family,  still  has  something  in  com- 
mon with  it.  The  modern  State,  at  least,  cares 
more  about  the  individual  man  than  does  the  eco- 
nomic order ;  its  laws  and  courts  aim  to  provide  that 
no  wrong  shall  be  done  to  him ;  and  its  charities  that 
no  ultimate  misfortune  shall  deprive  him  of  the 
plain  necessities  of  living.  The  State  thus  encour- 
ages the  venturesome  and  experimental  side  of  life 
by  ensuring  that  the  personal  interest  shall  not  be 
wholly  lost  in  it. 

If  anything  is  more  amazing  than  the  intricacy 
of  the  entanglement  of  every  man's  life  with  that 
of  others  in  a  modern  community,  it  is  the  slight 
awareness  we  have  of  that  mesh  of  mutual  depend- 


84  MOKALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

encies:  each  one  simply  "attends  to  his  own  busi- 
ness." The  infinitely  complex  pattern  of  matted 
twigs  and  grasses  at  the  water's  edge  is  formed  by 
the  simple  obedience  of  each  strand  to  the  play  of 
the  current.  But  in  the  case  of  the  human  network, 
this  economy  of  consciousness  is  possible  only  be- 
cause one  agency  is  set  apart  to  know  the  result  of 
the  weaving  from  moment  to  moment,  and  to  guide 
it  in  its  effect  on  the  individual  strands.  What  we 
call  laws  are  no  stable  principles  of  nature:  they 
are  experimental  adjustments  made  by  a  mind 
which  has  a  care  both  for  the  value  of  the  whole  and 
for  the  interest  of  every  dot  in  the  pattern,  and  with 
the  ceaseless  vigilance  and  continuity  of  thought  of 
an  inventor,  follows  experiment  with  experiment 
forever. 

Thus  the  State,  when  it  is  what  it  should  be,  acts 
as  a  sort  of  over-parent, — not  in  spite  of  our  in- 
dividualism, but  because  of  it.  The  *  *  rights ' '  which 
are  to  be  ''secured  to  us"  are  not  mere  generalities 
that  are  completely  provided  for  by  police  action  in 
warding  off  injuries:  they  are  positive  interests 
which  can  be  achieved  only  by  the  inventive  effort 
of  a  thinking  agent.  The  individual  does  not  be- 
come strong  as  the  State  becomes  weak,  but  the 
reverse:  it  is  only  the  strong  State  that  can  gen- 
erate strong  individuals. 

For  the  State  is  not  a  mere  protector  of  the  day's 
work:  it  everywhere  raises  the  level  of  the  day's 
ivork.    It  does  this  in  part  by  providing  what  Bage- 


STATE-BLINDNESS  85 

hot  called  **a  calculable  future,"  so  that  there  is  no 
theoretical  limit  to  the  duration  of  the  enterprises 
that  can  be  begun  with  a  fair  knowledge  of  what 
they  can  continue  to  count  on, — whether  the  build- 
ing of  pyramids  and  cathedrals,  the  cutting  of  ca- 
nals, or  the  making  of  railway  systems.  And  it 
does  this  still  more  by  securing  a  cumulative  past,  so 
that  nothing  of  import  to  the  common  life  is  lost, 
and  each  new  life  owns  all  that  has  come  to  light  of 
scientific  lore,  of  skill,  of  device,  of  wit  and  beauty 
and  insight,  and  of  the  personal  treasury  of  the 
tribe.  Without  his  history  man  is  without  his 
measures,  his  standards,  and  his  own  proper  stat- 
ure ;  and  without  the  State  he  is  without  his  history. 

2.  But  granted  that  the  State  does  these  things 
for  its  citizens,  as  things  are  now,  why  need  they 
be  done  by  the  State?  Men  have  to  go  through  a 
dismal  apprenticeship  of  external  control  in  order 
to  realize  all  the  conditions  of  their  existence  and 
to  value  them:  every  casting  must  have  its  case, 
but  once  the  metal  is  set,  the  shell  is  cracked  off  and 
throA\Ti  away.  Are  we  not  now  coming  to  a  maturity 
of  social  mind  in  which  the  expensive  and  faulty 
method  of  State-control  can  be  discarded  for  some- 
thing growing  up  more  directly  out  of  the  heart 
of  industry  and  of  society? 

The  question  is  searching,  and  should  bring  to 
light  a  less  obvious  element  in  the  being  and  work 
of  the  State,  the  continuous  creation  of  '^ society." 

As  things  are  now,  every  mind  of  us — by  aid  of 


86  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

the  morning  paper — acts  as  a  small  center  of  con- 
templation and  judgment  of  all  that  goes  on  in  the 
large  world  of  many  interests.  It  seems  to  us  that 
in  that  morning  survey  of  the  universe  the  State 
has  no  necessary  part,  except  that  it  is  one  of  the 
actors  on  the  stage,  one  among  many.  Without  it 
we  should  still  have  a  world,  a  set  of  common  in- 
terests,— and  a  morning  paper.  But  in  Russia  to- 
day we  are  not  sure  of  the  morning  paper ;  and  not 
the  least  oppressive  element  in  the  chaos  that  has 
settled  down  on  that  unfortunate  people  is  the  limit 
of  the  power  of  vision,  the  fluctuating  border  of  the 
sphere  within  which  any  concrete  proposition  is 
true  or  valid.  Russia  is  the  most  eloquent  answer 
to  political  pluralism. 

The  point  is,  that  without  the  State  there  are  no 
common  interests  to  be  watched,  any  more  than  a 
means  of  watching  them.  The  most  central  blunder 
of  the  State-blind  mentality, — a  blunder  made  easy 
by  the  good  working  of  the  modern  State  itself, — 
is  the  supposition  that  common  interests  exist  of 
themselves,  whereas  they  have  both  to  be  devised  by 
deliberate  inventive  acts  and  promoted  by  positive 
deeds.  One  of  the  leading  economists  of  this  land, 
Professor  Carver,  has  named  ''the  existence  of  un- 
satisfied wants  and  the  consequent  antagonism  of 
interests"  as  the  fundamental  social  fact.  This  fact 
exists  in  its  full  perfection  among  beasts  in  a  jungle 
with  a  carcass  between  them;  in  the  abstract  they 
have  a  common  interest,  namely,  to  di\ide  the  car- 


STATE-BLINDNESS  87 

cass  and  limit  their  appetite  that  both  beasts  may 
survive.  But  the  essential  conditions  which  would 
make  that  outcome  possible  are  lacking, — a  mind 
to  propose  the  idea  and  a  will  to  administer  it.  This 
common  interest,  and  all  common  interests,  must 
he  enacted.  The  fundamental  social  fact  is  the 
enactor;  and  that  being,  in  developed  societies,  is 
the  State. 

3.  The  State  so  far  appears  as  a  servant,  but  a 
necessary  servant,  of  the  most  vital  of  our  practical 
interests.  It  creates  the  world,  not  alone  the  world 
in  which  we  wish  to  think  but  also  the  world  in  which 
we  wish  to  act.  Having  a  natural  immortality,  as 
we  individuals  have  not,  it  confers  a  durability 
upon  our  deeds  that  otherwise  they  would  lack;  it 
cannot  make  our  souls  immortal,  but  it  can  approach 
another  kind  of  immortality  which  to  not  a  few 
minds  has  seemed  more  desirable,  an  immortality 
of  work,  and  in  rare  cases  of  one's  name  and  mem- 
ory. To  speak  within  wholly  literal  bounds,  the 
State  lends  its  longest  dimension  to  the  work  of 
every  honest  worker ;  and  if  we  cannot  say  that  this 
work  can,  by  any  earthly  agency,  be  made  eternal,  it 
may  at  least  be  saved  from  being  merely  local  and 
passing.  Apart  from  the  State,  human  experience 
would  be  a  perpetual  recurrence  of  ancient  mistakes ; 
with  the  State,  even  the  errors  and  failures  of  men 
contribute  to  the  total  advance,  since  they  make  those 
failures  evident  to  those  that  follow.  What  signifi- 
cance and  value  our  individual  thoughts  and  per- 


88  MOKALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

formances  have  is  thus  largely  conferred  on  them 
by  their  political  framework. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  apart  from  the 
State,  life  is  not  worth  living  for  such  as  we  have 
come  to  be  under  its  guardianship ;  though  the  man 
compelled  to  live  in  a  State  that  has  corrupted  the 
sources  of  its  own  just  functioning  may  be  worse  off 
than  apart  from  the  State. 

4.  Creating  the  common  interests,  the  State  cre- 
ates the  conditions  that  make  sacrifice  significant. 

The  highest  happiness  of  man  is  found  in  what  he 
can  do  and  give,  not  in  what  he  can  get ;  and  in  this 
sense  there  is  a  need  for  power  which  is  the  most 
honorable  thing  in  us,  power  for  our  fellows  rather 
than  over  them.  So  deep  is  this  instinct  for  doing 
for  others,  that  what  to  an  outsider  may  seem  a  sacri- 
fice on  the  part  of  parent  or  friend  may  to  the  agent 
seem  the  one  activity  that  makes  life  worth  living. 
Sacrifice,  as  men  call  it,  is  normally  an  exercise  of 
power,  and  felt  as  such;  and  only  when  it  has  this 
character  is  it  significant  and  valuable.  Whatever 
makes  sacrifice  thus  powerful  gives  human  life  its 
highest  meaning. 

It  is  evident  that  there  are  situations  when  sacri- 
fice is  mere  folly  and  waste.  ''Altruism"  has  no  in- 
herent merit;  giving  of  one's  labor  and  blood  to 
enrich  the  greedy  has  no  virtue ;  the  subjective  cru- 
sades of  a  Don  Quixote  may  claim  the  laughter, 
hardly  the  respect  of  men.  The  gift  of  the  silver 
service  by  Father  Bienvenu  to  Jean  Valjean  came 


STATE-BLINDNESS  89 

very  near  being  such  a  foolish  sacrifice ;  it  failed  of 
this,  and  saved  the  soul  tottering  in  the  balance. 
The  deepest  problem  of  social  life  is  that  of  dis- 
criminating between  the  wise  and  powerful  sacrifice 
and  the  sacrifice  that  is  weak  and  futile.  Men  are 
ready  to  be  martyrs  in  the  one  case ;  they  are  ready 
for  the  extreme  of  self-assertion  in  the  other.  This 
is  the  dilemma  of  labor  to-day.  It  is  the  dilemma  of 
the  realists  on  the  battlefield,  the  Barbusses,  the 
McGills,  who  see  the  ruin  and  the  waste  and  see 
not  that  it  is  for  anything  that  gives  it  the  charac- 
ter of  human  dignity  and  achievement. 

What  makes  the  difference  ?  My  answer  is :  The 
reality  of  the  common  interest,  in  some  cases  already 
present,  in  some  cases  to  he  created  by  the  act  of  sac- 
rifice itself.  The  foolish  act  of  altruism  is  the  act 
that  throws  one 's  life  into  a  chasm,  or  deprives  one- 
self of  a  good  to  appease  an  infinite  hunger  which  is 
neither  filled  by  it  nor  capable  of  valuing  it.  The 
nursing  of  vipers,  the  casting  of  pearls  before  swine, 
have  become  proverbial  of  the  unintelligent  self- 
alienation  which  is  but  indirect  suicide  and  the  re- 
jection of  life.  If  there  is  class  war,  personal  war, 
national  war,  all  sacrifice  of  one  side  for  the  other, 
all  non-resistance  which  merely  makes  way  for  the 
arrogant  will,  is  the  folly  which  becomes  equivalent 
to  treason.  The  significant  sacrifice  is  the  creative 
sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  that  wakens  the  enemy's  con- 
science and  rebuilds  broken  communications.  But 
such  sacrifice  cannot  occur  at  random;  it  cannot  be 


90  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

made  by  any  tour  de  force  of  will  without  regard 
to  circumstance  or  setting. 

It  must  be  evident  whither  this  argument  leads. 
It  is  the  presence  of  the  State  which,  for  the  great 
mass  of  us,  makes  the  difference  between  the  sacri- 
fic  which  is  folly  and  the  sacrifice  which  is  wisdom. 
If  there  were  no  State,  the  giving  away  of  my  goods 
to  one  who  demanded  them  would  be  an  act  of  fling- 
ing crumbs  to  fill  an  infinite  maw,  or  of  trying  to 
lift  the  seas  with  a  dipper.  It  would  be  the  meaning- 
less and  wicked  form  of  self-sacrifice  unless,  indeed, 
by  that  act  I  could  create  an  attachment  between  my- 
self and  the  receiver  which  would  mark  the  begin- 
ning of  a  stable  understanding  between  us,  a  rela- 
tion of  "polity";  and  such  a  relationship  w^ould  be 
an  incipient  community  or  State.  If  there  were  no 
State,  it  would  be  my  duty,  as  I  valued  my  oavti  hap- 
piness, to  lose  no  chance  to  bring  such  community  to 
pass;  if  there  were  no  State,  it  would  be  a  man's 
first  business  to  begin  one. 

Once  established,  the  State  provides  the  moral 
framework  within  which  acts  of  sacrifice,  all  labors 
and  offerings  for  the  common  good,  may  become  sig- 
nificant; because  every  man's  share  in  the  growing 
common  good  acts  as  a  pledge  that  he  will  stand  by, 
at  least  to  understand,  if  not  to  respond  to,  what 
is  done  for  him.  Nothing  is  radiated  off  into  empty 
space.  There  are,  or  should  be,  no  social  chasms 
which  cannot  be  crossed  by  the  creative  impulse  of 
good- will ;  no  feuds,  no  quarrels,  no  class  wars,  which 


STATE-BLINDNESS  91 

cannot  be  wiped  out.  Democracy,  as  a  principle  of 
State-structure,  is  the  express  denial  that  any  such 
impassable  chasms  or  irreducible  clashes  of  interest, 
exist. 

We  are  still  far  from  the  pure  democracy ;  we  are 
still  far  from  the  perfect  State.  We  are  still  in  a 
world  in  which  those  who  choose  to  look  passively 
on  the  defects,  the  selfishness  of  the  existing  order, 
can  find  much  to  support  their  contempt.  It  is  still 
possible  to  read  much  that  happens — if  one  enjoys 
the  sense  of  his  own  superiority  in  so  reading  it — 
as  dupery,  the  leading  of  lambs  to  the  slaughter  by 
the  crafty  of  this  world.  One  can  see  the  "leaders" 
of  men  as  "prodders-from-behind,"  driving  the 
masses  on  as  cannon-fodder,  that  their  endless  greed 
may  be  temporarily  appeased.  If  it  is  a  man's  rul- 
ing passion  to  be  saved  from  dupery,  he  may  indeed 
escape ;  but  more  than  likely  he  will  become  the  dupe 
of  his  own  distrust. 

It  is  not  the  part  of  a  man  to  live  on  the  dif- 
ference between  himself  and  the  villains  he  can 
discover  or  surmise;  it  is  the  part  of  a  man  to  live 
on  the  kernel  of  soundness  and  honesty  that  is  at 
the  heart  of  things,  that  will  outlive  all  shams  and 
frauds  and  corruptions,  and  to  give  himself  to  that, 
as  to  God.  The  State  we  have  been  talking  about 
exists,  but  it  exists  in  germ;  and  that  germ  is  in 
peril.  Better  men  than  we  have  seen  the  vision  and 
have  bled  for  it ;  there  is  but  one  way  in  which  the 


92  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

faith  of  those  who  have  gone  before  and  the  hope 
of  those  who  come  after  can  be  brought  to  earth. 
And  that  way,  however  perilous,  is  possible;  the 
beginnings  are  made ;  its  security  lies  in  the  quarter 
whither  the  allied  armies  are  driving.  It  is  the  thing 
worth  living  for,  and  if  need  be,  worth  dying  for. 


PART  II 
MORALE  OF  THE  FIGHT  ING  MAN 


CHAPTER  X 

PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER 

AifS"  one — and  certainly  the  soldier — might  reason- 
ably resent  the  suggestion  that  there  is  something 
peculiar  about  his  psychology.  Soldiers  of  to-day 
are  not  a  separate  caste  with  distinct  talents  and 
specialized  moral  development ;  they  are  not  chosen 
like  gladiators  for  their  native  muscle  and  pugna- 
city; they  are  not  bred  like  fighting-cocks  for  their 
irritability  and  gameness.  They  are  plain  men,  en- 
gaged in  a  special  and  temporary  task ;  they  intend, 
most  of  them,  to  become  plain  citizens  once  more 
when  that  task  is  done. 

In  ancient  and  in  feudal  times,  it  was  considered 
not  that  the  soldier,  but  that  most  of  the  rest  of 
society,  was  a  little  peculiar.  City  life,  trade  life, 
farm  life,  were  supposed  to  sap  the  warlike  temper 
and  produce  an  unspirited  human  variety.  The 
former  contempt  for  the  merchant  was  due  not  only 
to  the  idea  that  he  was  given  over  to  an  unmanly 
sort  of  competition,  that  he  liked  too  well  the  rule 
of  the  civil  order  whereby  everything  must  be  got 
by  wit  and  nothing  by  courage,  that  he  too  willingly 
forgot  how  far  the  security  of  that  very  rule  de- 
pends on  men  of  another  fiber:  it  was  due  also,  I 
presume,  to  sad  experience  in  various  attempts  to 

05 


96  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

turn  him,  in  an  emergency,  into  a  warrior.  For  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  division  of  labor,  a  very 
real  division  of  mental  quality  took  place  with  it, 
and  these  mental  grooves  between  occupational 
groups  tended  to  deepen.  Agricultural  populations 
became  an  easy  prey  to  the  wilder  tribes  about 
them;  wealthy  cities  had  to  buy  their  protection 
from  sounder-spirited  professional  fighters.  Even 
to-day,  the  phrase  ''a  nation  of  shop-keepers"  has 
just  enough  sting  in  it  to  make  the  eagle  and  the 
lion  squirm. 

But  we  have  learned  how  to  be  specialists  with- 
out sacrificing  too  much  of  what  is  called  ''all- 
around  development."  Occupation  still  leaves  its 
heavy  mental  mark ;  but  the  disappearance  of  hered- 
itary trades,  the  liberal  mingling  and  cross-classing 
of  men  on  all  lines  of  interest  outside  of  their  work, 
and  the  immense  growth  of  new  arts  of  recreation  go 
far  to  erase  it,  until  seemingly  only  enough  is  left 
of  the  visible  trade-mark  of  carpenter,  teacher, 
grocer,  la^^yer,  teamster,  artist,  parson,  for  the  cari- 
caturist— and  Sherlock  Holmes — to  work  upon.  In 
free  modern  States,  every  man  is  in  essentials  a 
complete  man:  the  soldierly  qualities  are  in  him, 
and  can  be  turned  to  account  Avhen  occasion  de- 
mands. So,  from  the  ranks  of  labor  and  trade, 
from  students,  clerks,  and  professional  men,  we 
recruit  an  army  that  we  are  ready  to  set  against  the 
most  pretentious  military  machine  the  world  has 
yet  seen  assembled.     This  army  contains  men  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  97 

every  variety  of  taste  and  temper,  who  will  by  no 
means  cease  to  be  themselves  because  for  the  time 
they  are  soldiers.  What  is  the  point,  then,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  psychology  of  the  soldier  ? 

It  is  this.  That  a  man's  mental  self  cannot  be 
separated  from  his  daily  habits,  from  the  environ- 
ment he  lives  in,  from  the  kind  of  dififlculties  he  is 
coping  with,  from  the  plans,  ambitions,  and  ideas 
he  is  occupied  with.  In  all  these  ways,  the  mind  of 
the  soldier  is  marked  off  from  the  mind  of  the  same 
man  in  civil  life.  Soldiering  is  a  life  having  its  own 
special  strains,  and  its  own  standards.  It  not  only 
brings  different  muscles  into  action ;  it  tests  charac- 
ter in  new  places.  It  is  a  profession  in  itself:  one 
in  which  an  amateur  can  indeed  win  his  spurs,  but 
only  by  dint  of  such  ''trying"  as  he  may  not  have 
kno\\m  he  was  capable  of.  Indeed,  a  large  part  of 
the  demand  which  this  new  environment  imposes 
upon  the  recruit  is  that  he  learns  what  it  means  to 
"try,"  until  the  slack  and  sag  of  an  indulgent  ex- 
istence are  taken  out  of  him.  Further,  the  army  is 
a  world  of  peculiar  structure :  the  conditions  of  suc- 
cess and  the  meaning  of  success  are  not  the  same 
as  elsewhere ;  consequently  it  is  not  always  the  same 
men  who  come  to  the  top.  In  all  these  ways,  it  re- 
quires and  tends  to  produce  a  mentality  of  its  own. 

The  immediate  change  of  garb  and  of  code  of 
manners  is  prophetic  of  the  inward  transformation 
which — more  or  less  instinctively — we  expect  to  fol- 


98  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

low.  Society  takes  a  new  look  at  every  man  when 
he  has  stepped  into  uniform.  It  knows  that  he  is 
making  a  fundamental  start  once  more  from  the 
beginning;  and  that  few  of  his  habits  or  ideas  will 
be  unaffected.  It  has,  indeed,  learned  to  avoid  the 
waste  involved  in  assuming  that  prior  talents  and 
training  count  for  nothing;  and  that  all  must  begin 
again  at  zero.  But  all  talents  are  to  undergo  a  new 
test  and  rating  on  the  basis  of  the  special  demands 
of  the  service.  Many  a  man  who  has  been  pegging 
away  at  a  task  not  quite  suited  to  him,  never  gaining 
headway  enough  to  leap  the  hurdle  just  ahead,  finds 
himself  now  dealing  with  a  technique  he  can  readily 
master  and  with  a  margin.  This  margin  fits  him 
for  a  step  on  the  ladder;  and  with  responsibility, 
latent  and  unsuspected  powers  of  command  are 
brought  to  the  surface.  Thus,  in  the  army,  many  a 
man  is  born  again.  And  many  another  is  converted 
in  another  sense,  by  having  to  face  at  last  the  kind 
of  task  he  has  habitually  shrunk  from,  and  learning 
the  age-old  human  lessons  of  labor  and  obedience. 
There  is  thus  a  re-sifting  of  human  material  in 
the  army ;  and  the  truths  men  discover  about  them- 
selves, welcome  or  unwelcome,  leave  their  lasting 
marks  in  consciousness.  The  occasional  reversal 
of  social  position  that  occurs — exploited  in  various 
popular  war-plays,  as  if  it  were  a  step  in  the  direc- 
tion of  more  essential  justice — is  but  an  external 
symptom  of  this  new  growth  within,  which  comes 
alike  to  nearly  every  man  in  the  service. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  99 

The  basic  part  of  this  mental  change — seldom  the 
most  conscious  part — is  simply  what  is  symbolized 
by  the  uniform  itself,  the  new  relation  which  the 
soldier  holds  to  the  rest  of  society,  and  which  he 
will  feel  most  quickly  in  its  altered  attitude  toward 
him.  It  is  finely  sketched  by  Barrie  in  a  play  which 
represents  a  father  coming  with  difficulty  to  recog- 
nize that  his  son  has  suddenly  supplanted  him  as 
the  head  of  the  family,  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he 
is  now  its  defender.  As  one  such  father  said  to  me, 
"I  look  upon  my  sons  now  with  a  sort  of  awe,  for  I 
know  that  they  have  been  meeting  things  which  it 
will  never  be  my  lot  to  meet."  The  ferment  that 
works  more  or  less  subconsciously  in  every  soldier's 
mind,  and  brings  other  changes  of  personality  in  its 
train  is  this :  that  society  in  its  hard  hour  has  found 
in  him  what  it  needed.  A  foundation  of  conscious 
worth  or  validity  is  laid  in  him,  which  is  distinct  in 
its  quality  from  that  of  other  social  successes,  more 
primitive  and  more  inalienable. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  sense  of  import  in  the  sol- 
dier's consciousness  is  always  good:  it  may  become 
a  sense  of  importance  and  special  privilege  and  be 
his  damnation.  It  is  natural  that  the  distinguishing 
character  of  the  soldier's  psychology  should  be  its 
distinguishing  malady,  when  it  goes  wrong,  gen- 
erating the  braggart,  the  libertine,  the  military 
loafer,  the  claim-all,  or  the  swashbuckler. 

And  I  do  not  say  that  the  new  strains  of  army 
existence  necessarily  *'show  what  men  really  are" 


100  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

or  "give  their  true  measure."  Not  uncommonly  a 
man  knows  very  well  that  in  becoming  a  soldier 
he  is  leaving  behind  him  his  best  chances  of  show- 
ing what  is  in  him.  The  ''real  man,"  presumably, 
is  found  in  the  work  his  talents  fit  him  to  do :  where- 
as much  that  is  in  men,  the  army  makes  no  pretence 
to  measure  or  to  use.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  un- 
fairness, and  even  of  mental  treason  to  social  wel- 
fare, in  the  instinctive  assumption  that  the  men 
who  can  rough-it  with  distinguished  efficiency,  your 
Crusoes,  your  admirable  Crichtons,  real  men  as  they 
are,  are  the  only  real  men,  while  the  rest  are  but 
shams  or  parasites. 

Yet  there  is  this  degree  of  justice  in  the  case :  that 
war,  like  every  direct  encounter  with  natural  ob- 
stacles, calls  not  so  much  for  special  talents  as  for 
the  common  denominators  of  human  nature,  the 
qualities  which  every  man  is  supposed  to  have  be- 
cause they  form  the  basis  of  all  the  rest.  The  ele- 
mental grit,  the  will  to  power,  must  be  there  at  the 
foundation  of  character  if  anything  good  is  to  come 
out  of  us.  Art,  poetry,  philosophy  transform — 
but  do  not  omit,  this  essential  virility :  in  music — if 
it  is  good  music,  in  wit — if  it  works,  we  feel  the  ul- 
timate tang;  we  surmise  the  force  that  mind  could 
bring  to  bear  against  the  original  challenges  of  phys- 
ical nature.  Thus  the  musician  or  poet  who  becomes 
the  soldier  gives  evidence  not  alone  of  the  vitality 
of  his  body  but  also  of  the  vitality  of  his  art.  The 
pride  of  the  soldier  is  pride  not  merely  in  his  fight- 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  101 

ing  powers,  but  in  the  integrity  of  all  his  work. 
And  society  is  right,  in  principle,  in  citing  the  vigor 
of  its  fighting  men  as  pertinent  evidence  in  disproof 
of  the  accusation  of  decadence;  in  honoring  them 
it  takes  a  just  pride  in  its  own  soundness. 

I  believe,  therefore,  that  the  popular  feeling  for 
the  man  in  arms  is  rationally  justified;  it  is  no  mere 
matter  of  ''crowd  psychology."  And  this  feeling, 
which  like  all  others  has  to  learn  its  own  due  balance 
by  experience,  is  an  integral  part  of  the  soldier's 
basic  self-confidence :  so  far  as  he  fills  the  character 
of  a  soldier,  he  deserves  it, — it  belongs  to  him. 

Except  when  he  is  mixing  with  the  populace,  how- 
ever, and  sensitive  to  their  admiration  (or  neglect, 
as  the  case  may  be),  the  soldier's  consciousness  is 
little  occupied  with  his  social  worth  or  other  merits. 
It  is  occupied  with  a  highly  prosaic  round  of  duties. 
War  is  an  eruption  of  extraordinary  evil  somewhere 
in  the  world,  and  the  character  of  its  origin  marks 
all  the  measures  devised  to  wage  it.  Long  before 
he  reaches  the  trenches,  the  soldier  has  occasion  to 
know  that  his  task  is  one  of  exigency  and  stress. 
Permanence,  abundance,  grace,  and  beauty  are  not 
the  leading  traits  of  barracks  life.  The  merely  art- 
ful side  of  civilian  manners  disappears  as  by  magic. 
''The  relations  between  man  and  man,"  as  Paul 
Lintier  says,  "become  primitively  direct.  One's  first 
preoccupation  is  to  make  oneself  respected."  The 
immediate  contest  with  nature,  digging,  scrubbing. 


102  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

cleaning,  lugging,  fills  the  hours  not  given  to  mili- 
tary formations,  increasingly  as  one  approaches  the 
front.  Masefield  has  said  that  his  composite  picture 
of  war  is  that  of  a  man  begrimed  and  mud-sodden, 
carrying  a  heavy  load.  And  one  wonders  whether 
the  psychological  variation  of  the  soldier  is  not 
really  in  the  direction  of  the  drudge  rather  than  in 
that  of  the  traditional  hero. 

In  his  very  spontaneous  '* Reactions  of  a  Rookie," 
Mr.  Walter  Agard  offers  some  rather  savage  reflec- 
tions upon  a  letter  from  the  front  in  which  a  college 
lad  wrote  as  follows : 

*'I'm  thankful  for  what  this  war  is  doing  for  me. 
It  has  grown  hair  on  my  chest,  taught  me  to  obey 
disagreeable  orders  graciously,  and  wiped  away  the 
damn  superficial  attitude  of  college." 

Mr.  Agard  had  reached  the  state  of  mind  in  which 
the  civilization  he  had  left  behind  him  was  glowing 
in  alluring  colors.  He  could  feel  little  sympathy 
with  a  man  to  whom  behavior  "essentially  common- 
place, obvious,  and  unrefined"  could  bring  a  re- 
freshing smack  of  sincerity  and  strength.  The  best 
things  in  literature,  science,  philosophy,  he  realized, 
are  not  superficial  matters;  they  are  not  ''veneer": 
they  are  life  itself.  To  be  forced  to  leave  them  is 
not  a  good,  but  a  calamity:  to  find  oneself  improv- 
ing under  the  change, — bah ! — what  an  ass  one  must 
have  been  before! 

It  stands  to  reason  that  there  is  nothing  intrinsi- 
cally desirable  in  crudity  and  dirt.    What  the  world 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIEB  103 

has  been  laboring  these  thousands  of  years  to  secure 
in  the  way  of  life 's  amenities  is  certainly  better  than 
the  ' '  state  of  nature ' '  left  behind, — far  better  there- 
fore than  what  the  soldier  has  to  return  to.  It  re- 
mains true  that  while  the  things  are  better,  the  peo- 
ple who  enjoy  them  are  not  necessarily  made  better 
by  the  things:  there  is  always  a  chance  for  moral 
loss  or  malproportion  in  the  way  society  treats  its 
advantages.  There  is  no  absurdity  in  the  idea  that 
a  man  who  thoroughly  appreciates  the  good  things 
of  peace  should  find  in  the  situation  of  the  soldier 
something  of  his  character  that  he  had  previously 
missed. 

One  of  the  most  genuine  soldiers  it  has  been  my 
privilege  to  know,  Capt.  Norman  Hall,  now  of  the 
Lafayette  Flying  Squadron,  came  to  Plattsburgh 
as  just  such  a  rookie,  after  serving  for  a  year  or 
more  in  the  Flanders  fighting  with  "Kitchener's 
Mob."  He  wanted  to  compare  the  American  with 
the  British  system  of  training.  At  that  time  the 
impulse  to  get  back  into  the  trenches  was  strong 
upon  him;  and  it  was  not  for  any  particular  blood- 
thirsty streak  in  his  disposition,  nor  for  any  love 
of  trench  conditions.  Hall,  too,  was  a  college  man, 
though  I  doubt  whether  he  suffered  much  from  the 
''damn  superficial  attitude":  he  knew  what  civiliza- 
tion was  worth.  But  in  that  impulse  of  his  to  get 
back,  there  was,  beside  other  things,  a  human  in- 
terest. ' '  Over  there, ' '  he  said, ' '  you  see  men  as  they 
are;  something  comes  out  in  them  that  one  hardly 


104  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

finds  anywhere  else."*  Even  in  these  days  when 
war  has  become  so  much  a  matter  of  engineering 
and  infernal  toil,  the  fancy  that  it  may  develop  ad- 
mirable qualities  in  men  is  not  a  myth. 

It  is,  however,  a  part  of  the  psychology  of  the 
soldier  that  these  qualities  should  be  more  visible 
to  everybody  else  than  to  himself.  The  words  "en- 
durance," ''courage,"  and  the  rest  of  the  names  of 
the  traditional  military  virtues,  do  not  at  once  call 
up  to  his  mind  anything  of  which  he  is  especially 
conscious.  For  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  virtue  is  not 
something  separate  from  the  outer  situation:  it  is 
simply  the  habit  of  meeting  that  situation  well,  and 
it  will  be  the  difficulty  of  the  situation  that  the  man 
will  be  most  conscious  of.  So  to  the  soldier,  the 
tedium  he  suffers  from  time  to  time  seems  sim- 
ply tedium ;  so  pain  is  pain,  and  fatigue  is  fatigue, — 
bits  of  dismal  experience  to  be  met  and  lived  through 
as  best  one  may.  It  does  not  at  once  occur  to  him 
that  the  act  of  living  through  these  things  well  is 
the  ''heroism,"  etc.,  that  sounded  so  attractive  in 
the  auditorium. 

Hence  if  we  are  to  describe  the  mind  of  the  soldier 
in  terms  he  is  likely  to  recognize,  it  would  be  well 
to  begin — as  the  realist  does — by  mentioning  the 
things  he  has  to  contend  with, — the  physical  grind 
and  danger,  the  loss  of  personal  freedom  and  distinc- 

*Thi8  is  his  De  Profundis  from  the  trenches:  "I  felt  actually 
happy,  for  I  was  witnessing  splendid,  heroic  things.  It  was  an 
experience  which  gave  one  a  new  and  unshakable  faith  in  his  fel- 
lows."    "With  Kitchener's  Mob,"  page  167. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIEB  105 

tion,  the  inescapable  consciousness  of  waste  and 
ruin  that  deepens  as  time  wears  on,  and  withal  a 
certain  bleakness  in  the  moral  atmosphere,  etc.  It 
would  be  a  false  and  unrecognizable  psychology  that 
should  ignore  these  things;  it  would  be  an  equally 
false  psychology  that  should  end  with  them,  as  if  the 
mind  were  identical  with  the  things  it  struggles 
against. 

The  loss  of  his  personal  freedom  is  something 
the  soldier  never  entirely  ceases  to  feel,  and  its 
mental  effects  are  far-reaching.  In  many  ways,  he 
has  to  unlearn  the  initiative  of  civil  life,  and  to 
disuse  the  constant  preoccupation  of  the  independ- 
ent man — the  making  of  plans  for  the  morrow,  and 
for  the  weeks  and  years  ahead.  There  are  few  re- 
sponsible recruits  to  whom  this  check  to  the  habit 
of  planning  one's  actions  does  not  come  at  first  as 
a  relief  mingled  with  bewilderment ;  it  adds,  in  any 
case,  a  certain  spice  of  adventure  to  existence.  But 
in  a  free  State,  responsibility  is  of  the  very  nature  of 
maturity;  and  in  a  democratic  army  the  impulses 
toward  self -management  and  plan-making  will  find 
in  a  hundred  ways  new  outlets,  feeding  on  such 
knowledge  as  the  soldier  can  raffle  together.  The 
critical  humor,  the  incessant  inquiring,  speculating, 
and  discussing  on  the  part  of  the  democratic  soldier 
are  due  largely  to  his  restless  desire  to  feel  himself 
master  of  his  own  destiny.  This  desire  can  never 
be  wholly  satisfied,  even  in  civil  life ;  and  its  neces- 


lOG  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

sary  repression  in  the  army  is  but  the  rough  side 
of  the  soldier's  primary  virtue  of  obedience.  But 
meanwhile,  anything  that  can  add  to  his  conscious- 
ness that  the  war  is  his  war,  and  that  he  is  co-re- 
sponsible for  its  outcome;  anything  that  can  make 
him  more  of  a  mental  sharer  in  its  ups  and  downs, 
in  its  geography,  history,  and  aims;  anything  that 
can  give  him  a  definite  province  of  his  own,  however 
limited,  for  initiative  and  invention,  will  both  ma- 
terially aid  the  morale  of  the  man  as  a  soldier,  and 
keep  vigorous  a  quality  invaluable  for  later  civilian 
life. 

One  important  mental  consequence  of  transfer- 
ring so  much  of  his  w^ill  to  his  commanders  is  that 
the  thrust  of  his  mil  is  shnplified  and  concentrated. 
In  the  mere  shaping  of  the  day's  work,  its  goings 
and  comings,  its  prescribed  ways  of  turning  around, 
of  getting  from  one  place  to  another,  its  times  of 
waking  up,  eating,  going  to  sleep,  the  labor  of  de- 
cision is  greatly  reduced.  Having  but  one  purpose  to 
fulfill  to  the  utmost,  the  whole  stream  of  his  interest 
can  be  directed  to  that;  and  he  experiences,  per- 
haps for  the  first  time,  the  full  value  of  having  a 
mental  attitude  wholly  definite  and  free  from  the 
many  weighings,  distractions,  invitations,  of  ordi- 
nary existence.  So  far,  the  soldier  is  likely  to  be- 
come unified,  categorical,  direct,  decisive,  strong.  He 
can  deal  in  yeses  and  noes,  in  black  and  white  in- 
stead of  in  half  tones.  The  finality  of  will  that 
marks  the  higher  command — I  am  speaking  of  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  107 

armies  in  the  field — penetrates  the  entire  mentality 
of  the  force,  and  lends  to  the  will  of  every  soldier 
the  power  that  comes  only  from  the  reduction  of  all 
issues  to  one — the  defeat  of  the  enemy. 

But  this  moral  simplification,  it  is  fair  to  note,  is 
accompanied  by  a  physical  complication'.  For  the 
soldier  has  everything  to  do,  and  the  specialization 
of  his  civil  career  is  largely  undone.  There  are  of 
course  many  specialties  within  the  army,  in  the 
several  branches  of  the  service,  in  the  company,  the 
platoon,  and  even  in  the  squad.  But  even  so,  the 
soldier  must  be  a  versatile  animal,  must  know  how 
to  be  his  own  bed-maker,  barber,  laundryman,  and 
at  times  his  owti  builder  and  cook,  though  billets 
normally  relieve  him  of  various  of  these  functions. 
The  most  ancient  of  all  divisions  of  labor,  that  be- 
tween the  work  of  man  and  woman,  is  wiped  out. 
The  accomplished  army  engineer  is  the  nearest  sur- 
viving example  of  the  jack-of-all-trades.  In  short, 
the  life  of  the  soldier  has  all  the  complications  of  an 
attempt  at  self-sufficiency.  He  must  carry  in  his 
pack  and  kit-bag  all  the  essential  elements  of  civil- 
ization in  portable  form.  The  soldier,  by  necessity, 
becomes  man  generalized. 

Men  who  enter  the  army  with  a  hearty  spirit  of 
ambition,  w^hether  from  love  of  adventure  or  from 
eagerness  to  serve  and  to  learn  the  technique  of  the 
new  activity,  may  be  hardly  at  all  conscious  at  first 
either  of  the  loss  of  freedom  or  of  the  rather  crude 
and  primitive  conditions  of  camp  life.    They  come 


108  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

with  the  expectation  of  being  ordered  about;  and 
they  know  that  some  involuntary  austerities  are  in 
store  for  them.  Whatever  is  characteristic  of  army 
life  has  its  keen  interest  just  on  that  account.  They 
are  usually  less  aware  of  the  hierarchy  of  oflBcial 
rank  than  of  a  very  different  hierarchy, — the  supe- 
riority of  the  experienced  man  over  the  new  man. 
There  is,  beside  this  new  art  of  living  a  portable  and 
all-around  existence,  an  elaborate  set  of  abbrevia- 
tions and  signs,  a  new  language  to  be  learned:  and 
one  is  less  worried  by  the  crudeness  of  ways  and 
means  than  by  his  own  greenness  in  making  use 
of  them.  Soldierly  ambition,  in  fact,  is  an  almost 
perfect  anesthetic  for  the  minor  trials  incident  to 
life  in  camp  and  field:  and  those  officers  who  are 
skilled  in  securing  a  strong  morale  are  those  that 
take  a  high  personal  pride  in  the  technique  of  their 
calling,  and  communicate  it,  in  encouraging  fashion, 
to  their  command. 

But  it  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  work  of  a  soldier 
that  not  much  is  said  about  the  ideals  and  sentiments 
that  sustain  his  labor.  Reticence  on  such  points  is, 
in  fact,  one  of  the  traditional  military  ideals.  A 
man  is  supposed  to  have  sufficient  motive  power 
within  him,  so  that  all  attention  can  be  given  to  the 
material  business  in  hand.  The  moral  atmosphere  is 
rarefied;  it  is  meant  to  he  rarefied, — and  correspond- 
ingly bracing.  Thus  arises  one  of  the  profound  con- 
trasts that  mark  the  existence  of  the  soldier. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  109 

For  while  his  daily  life  is  a  sacrifice  for  an  ideal 
— without  which  he  is  simply  a  man  in  misfortune ; 
while  he  is  therefore  more  dependent  than  any  civil- 
ian on  idealism,  if  he  is  to  keep  his  spirit  alive ;  he  is 
more  exposed  than  any  other  human  being  to  the 
insistence  of  the  material  facts,  and  so  to  a  sort  of 
disillusion  and  fatalistic  slump.  The  foreground 
of  his  life  is  apparently  hard-headed,  realistic,  sor- 
did; the  feelings  and  sentiments  that  were  in  evi- 
dence during  the  recruiting  campaign  have  retired 
to  the  background.  He  finds  himself  summoned 
to  "pack  up  his  troubles  in  the  old  kit-bag,"  and  if 
he  is  wise  he  does  so;  but  the  philosophy  of  "smile" 
hardly  meets  all  his  requirements :  he  recognizes  it 
for  what  it  is,  less  a  philosophy  than  a  life-preserver. 
He  is  likely  to  get  the  impression  that  his  ideals, 
and  the  people  that  talked  of  them,  have  somehow 
gone  back  on  him. 

The  impression  is  mistaken.  But  like  every  other 
man  who  undertakes  a  man's  job,  the  soldier  must 
go  through  his  o\vn  struggle  with  this  contrast  be- 
tween the  foreground  and  the  background,  and  must 
find  a  way  to  keep  his  background  alive  within  him- 
self. What  is  necessary  is  that  he  should  be  able  to 
think  of  himself,  with  his  background,  in  a  way  that 
the  foreground  does  not  banish.  We  shall  try  to 
suggest  such  a  way  of  picturing  the  case. 

It  has  sometimes  aided  me  to  put  things  into  the 
right  perspective  to  think  of  the  soldier  as  the  man 


110  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

who  lives  always  at  the  frontier.  The  frontier  of 
civilization  is  not  a  line  that  has  kept  moving  west- 
ward until  it  has  passed  out  of  existence;  civiliza- 
tion is  always  in  contact  with  its  enemies,  even  with 
its  beginnings.  The  foundations  of  the  social  order 
are  not  laid  once  for  all  in  a  remote  past :  as  long  as 
there  are  spots  of  disorder  and  chaos  in  the  world, 
there  are  beginnings  to  be  made.  And  here  the 
soldier  is  always  found. 

In  times  of  peace,  he  is  there,  where  great  canals 
are  being  dug,  or  where  forest-reserves  are  being 
warded,  or  where  mountain  roads  are  being  built, 
or  irrigation  projects  carried  out,  or  where  law  and 
order  have  broken  down.  His  task  is  to  face  origi- 
nal chaos  and  to  create  the  beginnings  of  social  life. 
And  in  times  of  war,  he  is  still  doing  the  same  thing : 
the  soldier  is  the  perpetual  pioneer. 

It  is  from  this  angle,  I  believe,  that  we  can  best 
judge  how  much  the  experience  of  the  soldier  may 
have  to  contribute  to  the  mental  equipment  of  the 
specialized  and  civilized  man.  If,  as  a  pioneer,  he 
takes  part  in  the  foundations  of  the  State,  he  gets 
an  understanding  of  the  efforts  of  those  that  have 
built  his  society;  he  joins  hands  with  them,  and  his 
mind  stretches  the  gamut  from  origin  to  finished 
product  with  a  new  sense  of  mastery.  His  imagina- 
tion becomes  adequate  and  responsible  in  proportion 
as  he  sees  what  it  has  cost  to  make  a  social  order. 
He  ceases  to  look  on  the  virtues  of  the  historical 
State-makers  as  strange,  ancient,  and  inaccessible. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  111 

He  knows  what  is  involved  in  building  a  state,  for 
he  himself  is  now  one  of  the  founders.* 

The  soldier,  then,  is  the  man  permanently  at  the 
frontier.  But  the  character  of  the  soldier  only  ap- 
pears when  we  add  the  reason  for  his  being  there. 
The  reason  is  simply  that  the  frontier  is  the  place 
where  the  residual  perils  to  society  are  to  be  found. 
The  essential  thing  in  the  character  of  the  soldier 
thus  appears:  he  is  the  man  who  declines  to  take 
shelter  from  these  perils  at  the  cost  of  anybody  else. 
This  unwillingness  to  be  the  protected  person,  an 
expression  of  the  one  characteristic  instinct  of  man- 
hood, seems  to  me  to  be  the  quality  from  which  all 
the  more  particular  military  virtues  are  derived. 

This  state  of  mind,  declining  to  be  sheltered  by 
others,  naturally  links  itself  with  many  another  mo- 
tive,— with  whatever  love  of  adventure  and  what- 
ever "desire  for  fear"  (as  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  calls 
it)  there  is  in  a  man's  make  up,  with  the  temper 
which  finds  it  intolerable  that  there  is  anything  in 
the  universe  of  which  mankind  must  be  lastingly 
afraid.    It  excites  all  the  latent  gaming  spirit,  and 

•This  same  view  of  the  case  should  give  U3  a  means  of  judging 
the  value  of  military  training  in  times  of  peace.  It  can  never  be 
a  matter  of  educational  indifference  to  have  an  active  share  in 
the  beginnings  of  the  State.  The  attempt  of  a  certain  small  part 
of  civilian  society  to  get  "back  to  nature"  during  the  summer 
months  is  evidence  that,  quite  apart  from  the  need  for  recreation, 
a  psychological  need  for  the  pioneering  role  is  felt;  while  the  mani- 
fest absurdity  of  turning  the  entire  population  of  the  land  to  such 
an  existence  for  any  period  of  time,  is  evidence  that  the  need  in 
question  is  imperfectly  understood  or  met.  Naturally,  having  a 
sham  share  in  pioneering  is  of  no  educational  worth.  Military 
drill  without  military  labor  becomes  stale  and  unprofitable.  But 
some  union  of  the  two  may  fill  an  educational  gap. 


112  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

that  curious  artificial  instinct  which  civilization  cre- 
ates for  the  crude  and  raw,  a  symptom  of  the  fact 
that  our  advances  are  not  all  advance.  All  these 
and  many  another  strand  of  motive  might  be  de- 
tected in  the  psychology  of  the  soldier,  which  tend  to 
cast  a  glamor  over  the  rough  sides  of  his  experience 
— at  least  in  retrospect. 

But  whether  or  not  one  takes  any  organic  satis- 
faction in  the  difficulties  and  perils  of  soldiering 
for  their  own  sakes — and  the  time  comes  when  the 
stoutest  gets  sick  unto  death  of  them — the  virtue 
of  the  soldier  is  to  go  through  with  them  willy  nilly 
on  the  general  principle  that  if  there  is  anything 
that  has  to  be  stood,  he  can  stand  it.  He  is  not 
going  to  let  the  other  fellow  stand  it  for  him. 

There  is  an  act  of  faith  required  in  this  state  of 
mind;  because  one  does  not  know  in  advance  what 
he  may  have  to  go  through.  He  has  to  face  it  in  a 
sort  of  blanket-clause:  he  commits  himself  to 
"whatever  is  involved,"  on  the  assumption  that 
what  man  has  done  man  can  do  again,  and  probably 
more.  And  loyalty,  which  means  holding  to  this 
commitment  when  things  are  at  their  worst,  in- 
cludes the  other  traditional  soldierly  virtues,  en- 
durance, severity,  courage. 

For  endurance  means.  There  is  nothing  we  can't 
stand  if  we  have  to.  Severity  means,  There  is 
nothing  we  can't  do,  if  we  have  to,  i.  e.,  in  the  way 
of  the  killing  deed.  And  courage  means,  There  is 
nothing  we  can't  face  if  we  have  to. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  113 

Of  courage  we  shall  have  more  to  say  in  the 
chapter  on  fear.  But  here  a  few  words  about  sever- 
ity, of  all  these  qualities  least  spoken  of,  and  yet 
not  the  least  necessary,  nor  the  least  difficult  to 
acquire.  The  deed  of  killing  is  psychologically  re- 
pellent to  the  majority  of  civilians.  There  is  thought 
to  be  a  ** hunting  instinct"  in  us,  but  comparatively 
few,  in  our  day,  develop  it;  and  I  venture  to  think 
that  there  are  few  to  whom  the  occasional  acts  of 
minor  surgery  that  come  under  the  head  of  **  heroic 
measures ' '  do  not  cause  a  certain  moral  effort.  The 
soldier  has  to  achieve  a  disposition  to  kill,  under 
the  control  of  the  knowledge  that  this  deed  has  be- 
come his  duty.  To  many  civilians,  this  necessarily 
involves  a  ** hardening"  of  the  soldier's  fiber;  and 
some  dare  to  use  the  word  ''brutalizing."  The  lat- 
ter would  be  fitly  dealt  with  by  being  required  to 
kill  their  own  meat,  or  go  without.  Nothing  that  is 
a  necessary  duty  can  be  intrinsically  brutalizing. 
Neither  is  ''hardening"  the  word,  if  by  that  is 
meant  a  loss  of  sensitiveness.  It  is  usual,  I  believe, 
that  in  soldiers  who  have  seen  much  fighting — and 
just  on  that  account — the  growth  of  sternness  in  the 
grim  work  of  war  goes  with  a  deepening  of  tender- 
ness toward  the  people  at  home.  Severity,  I  think, 
is  the  word  for  the  normal  effect  of  this  requirement 
on  character,  a  trait  which  implies  an  effort  against 
one's  own  shrinking,  one's  misplaced  tenderness  and 
pity,  as  well  as  against  the  life  of  the  enemy:  it  is 
the  noble  resolve  to  accept  the  disagreeable  task, 


114  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

even  the  revolting  task,  if  it  is  something  that  has 
to  be  done  by  somebody. 

There  are  those  who  profess  to  see  in  the  psy- 
chology of  the  soldier,  so  far  as  he  differs  from  his 
usual  self,  simply  atavism,  reversion  toward  the 
savage  type.  Primitive  men,  it  seems,  killed  for 
the  love  of  it :  and  in  all  of  us,  it  is  said,  there  lurks 
this  murderous  lust,  to  which  only  war  gives  free 
outlet.  In  this  day  of  grace,  it  is  given  to  few  men 
except  the  soldier  to  *'see  red"  in  the  original  and 
literal  sense  of  the  phrase;  and  the  experience, 
delirious  and  fearful,  leaves  its  mark  no  doubt  upon 
his  memory,  and  his  character. 

But  what  mark  does  it  leave?  The  mark  of  the 
mind  that  went  into  action.  In  the  passion  of  com- 
bat, the  man  becomes  partly  mechanized,  works  to  a 
degree  as  an  automaton,  becomes  so  far  insensitive 
to  pain  that  operations  without  anesthetics  have 
been  performed  (I  have  heard)  on  soldiers  still 
under  the  spell  of  the  fighting,  without  causing 
severe  suffering:*  He  knows  more  or  less  vaguely 
that  he  is  as  it  were  merely  the  physical  agent 
of  himself, — that  thought  and  deliberation  are  put 
away  in  the  intense  concentration  of  the  physical 

•"Even  the  wounded  refuse  to  abandon  the  struggle.  As  though 
possessed  by  devils,  they  fight  on  until  they  fall  senseless  from  loss 
of  blood.  A  surgeon  in  a  front  line  post  told  me  that  at  one  mo- 
ment anesthetics  ran  out,  owing  to  the  impossibility  of  bringing 
forward  fresh  supplies  through  the  bombardment.  Arms,  even  legs, 
were  amputated  without  a  groan,  and  even  afterward  the  men  seemed 
hardly  to  have  felt  the  shock." 

Despatch  from  Verdun,  May  24,  1918. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  115 

action.*  It  is  the  ivhole  mind  that  gives  the  charac- 
ter to  any  action;  and  it  is  some  time  before  the 
whole  of  that  ahnost  somnambulistic  fighting  mind 
can  be  reassembled.  That  whole  mind  has  the  qual- 
ity of  the  man's  enduring  purposes;  and  it  would 
be  absurd  to  speak  of  these  as  atavistic, — quite  as 
much  so  to  describe  in  these  terms  that  moment  of 
absorption  in  the  frenzy  of  battle. 

I  think  it  fair  to  judge  that  if  events  call  us  back 
at  any  time  in  history  to  the  rude  work  of  dealing 
with  public  crime,  the  event  shows  that  there  was 
something  meretricious  about  our  prior  refinement, 
something  over-protected  and  self -content.  War  is 
the  calamity  that  reminds  us  that  we  have  come  to 
the  details  of  our  paradise  too  soon ;  we  were  taking 
our  ease  before  we  had  a  full  right  to  it.  Thus  war 
belongs  to  that  mysterious  side  of  life  called  "earn- 
ing," an  apportionment  of  effort  to  reward  whose 
quantitative  reason  always  escapes  us,  a  tax  which 
no  human  utopia-deviser  would  impose  as  the  price 
for  his  enjoyments,  and  yet  which  instantly  becomes 
the  debt  of  honor  of  every  man  whence  the  demand 
is  made.  And  perhaps  we  must  remain  capable 
for  all  time  of  the  harsh  as  well  as  of  the  mild  in 
our  conduct.     It  is  a  poor  microscope  that  is  not 

*"It  has  often  happened  in  war  that  some  stubbornness  in  attack 
or  defense  has  roused  the  same  quality  in  the  opposer,  till  the 
honor  of  the  armies  seems  pledged  to  the  taking  or  holding  of  one 
patch  of  ground  perhaps  not  vital  to  the  battle.  It  may  be  that  in 
war  one  resolute  soul  can  bind  tlie  excited  minds  of  multitudes  in 
a  kind  of  bloody  mesmerism;  but  these  strange  things  are  not  stud' 
led  as  they  should  be." 

John  Masefield,  Gallipoli,  page  155. 


116  MOBALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

equipped  with  the  coarser  as  well  as  with  the  finer 
adjustment ;  for  in  fineness  itself  there  is  an  element 
of  restraint  and  confinement.  Without  an  echo  of 
severity,  as  of  a  force  held  in  distant  reserve,  some- 
thing of  the  masculine  character  seems  lacking, 
whether  in  war  or  in  peace. 

The  qualities  so  far  mentioned  have  been  defined 
in  negative  terms,  because  they  are  the  bottom  qual- 
ities which  a  man  must  fall  back  ujoon  when  he  is 
nearing  his  limit.  Under  ordinary  circumstances, 
however,  the  ''decliner  of  shelter"  wears  a  lighter 
mask.  Endurance  is  covered  over  by  cheerfulness, 
and  cheerfulness  in  turn  by  a  superficial  freedom 
in  ''grousing"  which  implies  that  there  is  nothing 
too  serious  going  on,  and  so  no  reason  for  not  say- 
ing what  comes  into  one's  head.  Severity  and  cour- 
age are  commonly  covered  over  in  the  same  w^ay — 
according  to  taste — by  a  certain  hardness  or  non- 
chalence  of  demeanor  and  language,  which,  like 
the  callouses  on  a  much-used  hand,  are  assumed  to 
fit  the  environment.  And  just  as  the  assumed  cheer- 
fulness loses  its  value  in  time,  and  dies  a  natural 
death,  so  an  assumed  huskiness,  aggressiveness, 
bravado,  or  coarseness  of  manner  give  way  in  time 
to  a  simpler,  quieter,  and  franker  dealing  with  things 
as  they  come. 

Perhaps  the  finest  things  in  the  temper  of  the 
soldier  are  these  later  qualities  that  only  come  with 
experience, — steadiness,   absence   of  pretense,   and 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SOLDIER  117 

the  firm  undemonstrative  readiness  for  whatever 
may  happen  next.  I  know  of  no  single  name  for 
these  qualities,  unless  it  is  the  word  ''reality."  In 
it,  the  psychology  of  the  soldier  joins  with  that  of 
the  man  everywhere  who  has  learned  to  worship  the 
god  of  things  as  they  are.  He  has  made  his  mental 
detour,  passed  through  the  stage  of  special  character 
and  contrast  to  the  civilian  mind,  and  has  returned 
to  his  natural  self.  It  is  perhaps  only  a  few  who 
complete  the  circuit;  but  those  who  are  genuinely 
"first  in  war"  are  ready  without  another  reversal 
of  character  to  become  the  ''first  in  peace."  War 
has  been  their  path  to  wholeness. 

In  describing  "the  soul  of  the  soldier,"  Lieuten- 
ant Morize  of  the  first  French  Military  Mission  to 
this  country,  said,  "To  my  thinking,  that  means  for 
you  two  things, — the  spirit  of  sacrifice  and  the  spirit 
of  discipline."  The  "spirit  of  sacrifice"  may  be 
taken  as  another  name  for  the  qualities  we  have  been 
discussing.  The  "spirit  of  discipline"  is  a  chapter 
by  itself. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DISCIPLINE  AND  DEILL 

The  mental  unity  of  an  army  is  no  easy  incident  of 
being  * '  with  one  accord  in  one  place. "  It  is  a  result 
to  be  purchased  at  a  great  price.  To  make  of  a 
million  men  an  instrument  with  which  a  commander 
can  do  what  he  will  is  a  modern  miracle,  to  be  un- 
derstood only  by  a  long  history  of  the  art  of  com- 
bining the  smaller  groups,  and  of  finding  the  simple 
operations  which  can  best  serve  as  the  units  for  all 
the  actions  of  that  composite  monster,  the  army. 
To  anyone  who  witnesses  the  ease  and  speed  with 
which  a  forty-acre  field  may  blossom  out  into  a 
great  camp  of  shelter  tents,  and  with  which  this 
same  camp  may  dissolve  again  into  the  forty-acre 
field,  the  process  may  seem  a  simple  one ;  but  it  has 
had  to  be  built  up  by  inches,  and  by  a  hundred  fit- 
tings of  one  man's  act  into  the  act  of  his  neighbor. 
Yet  this  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  simplest  of  the  deeds 
of  a  military  unit  and  certainly  one  least  liable  to 
distraction. 

When  one  considers  that  the  invitations  to  con- 
fusion under  which  the  serious  business  of  an  army 
is  done  are  no  ordinary  disturbances,  but  such  as 
take  deepest  hold  on  human  instincts,  he  begins  to 

118 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DRILL  119 

measure  the  amount  of  strain  which  discipline  must 
be  able  to  bear  without  breaking,  A  newly  acquired 
habit  must  be  set  against  the  most  masterful  im- 
pulses ;  and  must,  at  times,  be  able  to  take  the  place 
of  thought  and  will  themselves. 

In  discipline  there  are  two  elements  which  it  is 
hard  for  men  of  American  mould  to  accept.  The  one 
is  the  loss  of  personal  freedom  and  distinction  of 
which  we  have  spoken.  The  other  is  the  arbitrary 
stress  that  is  laid  on  doing  details  just  so  rather 
than  otherwise,  when  an  active  and  inventive  reason 
suggests  many  an  alternative  and  perhaps  better 
way.  There  is  no  a  priori  reason  why  a  campaign 
hat  should  go  with  one  kind  of  bodygear  and  a  cap 
with  another.  Neither  is  there  any  reason  why  one 
should  turn  to  the  right  rather  than  to  the  left  in 
passing;  but  there  is  every  reason  for  adopting 
some  rule,  arbitrarily  if  necessary,  and  making  it 
uniform.  Hence  the  pressure  of  the  arbitrary  is 
everywhere  in  the  early  stages  of  army  education. 

It  is  not,  indeed,  nearly  so  pervasive  as  one  is 
first  tempted  to  think.  Behind  the  concise  dicta  of 
the  Infantry  Drill  Regulations  there  is  a  mine  of 
experience  in  the  multitude  of  wrong  ways  of  doing 
things ;  and  the  best  drillmasters  make  some  of  this 
wisdom  apparent  as  they  harp  on  the  required 
methods  of  execution.  But  it  would  seem  to  me  one 
of  the  most  useful  contributions  of  military  training 
to  the  general  art  of  living  in  a  democracy  if  it  could 
ingrain  the  idea  of  the  necessary  consent  to  some 


120  MOBALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

arbitrary  basis  of  action  involved  in  carrying  out 
every  common  purpose. 

Before  any  gathering  can  take  place,  a  meeting- 
point  must  be  set — if  need  be  by  arbitrary  decision. 
Before  a  race  can  be  run  or  a  game  played,  the  goal 
posts  must  be  placed,  and  the  placing  will  require 
some  other  faculty  than  pure  reason.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  the  finer  points  of  character  and  prin- 
ciple grow  up  about  some  more  or  less  arbitrary 
self-requirement.  If  a  battalion  on  being  relieved 
after  six  mortal  days  in  the  trenches  marches  to 
its  billets  at  attention,  it  is  giving  the  last  unneces- 
sary touch  of  perfection  to  its  work,  but  in  a  way 
that  means  much  to  morale;  for  it  asserts  w^hat 
every  man  wants  to  believe  of  his  deed,  ''we  did  it 
with  a  margin."  Discipline  means  subjection;  but 
not  subjection  to  officers.  It  means  subjection  of 
the  body  to  the  mind;  it  means  the  superiority  of 
the  human  spirit  to  the  last  efforts  of  wind  and 
weather,  and  the  demons  of  fear,  pain,  and  fatigue. 
It  is  the  element  of  Stoicism  without  which  no  man 
can  do  his  living  well. 

During  the  opening  years  of  the  war,  we  heard 
a  great  deal  about  the  changed  conditions  of  war- 
fare. The  technique  of  the  trenches  seemed  to  ren- 
der all  traditional  tactics  obsolete,  and  especially  to 
throw  close-order  drill  into  relative  unimportance. 
Digging-in,  bomb-throwing,  sniping,  bayonet-prac- 
tice, etc. — these  arts  had  risen  to  the  first  magni- 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DBIMj  121 

tude :  *  *  On  right  into  line ' '  and  even  ' '  Squads  right ' ' 
appeared  ornamental  rather  than  useful  accomplish- 
ments. 

So  it  seemed  also  to  the  first  contingents  from 
the  British  provinces.  And  when  the  Guards  regi- 
ments of  London,  the  be-plumed  and  he-buttoned 
admiration  of  the  London  streets,  entrained  for  the 
front,  there  was  much  shrewd  comment  to  the  effect 
that  they  would  shine  less  gloriously  in  the  rude 
conditions  of  trench  warfare,  less  gloriously  than 
the  rough-and-ready  fighters  at  their  sides. 

The  prophets  were  wrong.  The  Guards  continued 
to  shine,  and  to  outshine.  The  rough-and-readies 
lacked  nothing  in  spirit,  but  they  suffered  fright- 
fully through  inaccuracies,  through  overreaching, 
through  running  into  their  own  barrage,  through 
carelessness  in  details.  All  of  the  training  camps, 
in  the  provinces  and  elsewhere,  changed  their  minds. 
Wherever  opportunity  offered,  at  the  front,  at 
Etaples,  at  Aldershot,  I  asked  the  question  and  re- 
ceived the  same  answer.  "Whatever  you  Ameri- 
cans do,  give  us  men  who  have  the  elements  of  dis- 
cipline, the  close-order  drill.  If  they  lack  in  the 
field  work,  we  can  make  that  good  over  here;  but 
nothing  can  make  up  for  weakness  in  the  drill. ' ' 

What  is  the  explanation?  It  lies  partly  in  the 
enormous  difficulties  of  perfect  team-work  among 
large  numbers  of  men  under  any  conditions,  and 
partly  in  the  phenomenal  capacity  of  the  human 
mind  for  careless  and  inaccurate  workmanship,  in 


122  MORAL.E  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

which  we  of  America  certainly  hold  a  high  place.* 
As  in  the  case  of  other  new  lands,  we  have  won  a 
certain  level  of  result  easily:  we  have  not  had  to 
count  the  farthings,  nor  to  measure  our  farms  by 
the  square  foot.  Informality  has  been  one  of  our 
ideals ;  and  it  has  a  rare  distinction  among  ideals, — 
we  have  achieved  it.  We  have  gained  a  freedom 
from  red  tape,  a  directness  of  fitting  means  to  ends, 
a  deliverance  from  the  worship  of  insignia  and  plum- 
age, which  are  integral  parts  of  our  democracy  and 
which  have  shown  their  worth  too  often  to  be  given 
up.  At  the  same  time,  however,  a  certain  slackness 
has  leaked  in,  a  toleration  of  incompetence,  and  a 
forgetting  of  the  value,  the  meaning,  the  positive  en- 
joyment of  good  form. 

I  say  the  enjoyment  of  good  form,  because  I  doubt 
whether  there'is  any  human  being  who  does  not  take 
pleasure  in  a  maneuver,  or  any  other  bit  of  work- 
manship, done  with  skill  and  accuracy.  But  the 
case  for  discipline  does  not  rest  on  the  enjoyment 
of  the  finished  result :  it  rests  on  its  practical  value, 
and  on  its  meaning. 

The  practical  value  of  discipline  is  largely  a  mat- 

*A8  an  example,  those  who  have  the  happy  task  of  instructing 
cadet  officers  will  appreciate  the  following  set  of  replies  which 
came  to  me  in  an  examination  in  which  the  men  were  asked  to 
describe  the  position  of  the  soldier — naturally  not  all  from  one 
man: 

"Heels  together  and  pointing  outward,  making  an  angle  of  45 
degrees ; 

"Hips  in,   as  nearly  as  the  conformation   of  the  man   permita; 

"Body  placed  squarely  on  the  hips; 

"Shoulders  straight,  drawn  back,  and  arched ; 

**The  chin  and  eyes  remain  on  an  axis  of  90  degrees  from  the  neck." 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DEILL  123 

ter  of  psychology.  The  more  intently  men  learn  to 
observe  each  others'  movements,  to  listen  to  the 
words  of  command,  and  to  accommodate  themselves 
to  the  doings  of  the  unit  they  are  with,  the  more 
fit  they  are  for  team  work  of  any  kind,  the  more 
they  form  the  habit  of  feeling  themselves  a  unit. 
The  insistent  practice  of  a  few  unit-operations  until 
they  retire  into  subconsciousness  and  become  me- 
chanical, allows  the  mind  to  be  free  and  to  think  of 
the  total  formation.  Freeing  the  mind  is  the  func- 
tion of  all  technique:  no  one  who  has  to  think  of 
the  individual  placing  of  his  fingers  can  be  a  pianist. 
It  is  a  necessity,  not  a  luxury,  for  a  commanding 
oflScer  to  be  able  to  think  of  his  command  as  a  unit, 
to  handle  it  as  a  unit, — which  can  only  be  the  case 
if  it  has  mentally  grown  together  into  unity.  Army- 
making  is  a  process  of  mental  grafting;  and  this 
can  only  be  achieved  by  training  attention  until 
each  man's  mind  is  rooted  into  the  mind  of  his 
neighbors,  not  by  his  separate  conscious  efforts, 
but  by  great  subconscious  blocks  of  habit. 

Quite  apart  from  this  is  the  practical  value  of 
doing  some  one  thing  to  perfection.  Some  mental 
habits  spread  faster  than  others :  a  boy  who  studies 
mathematics  and  hates  it  will  gain  very  few  mental 
virtues  that  can  be  used  on  other  things.  But  a 
man  who  can  do  the  manual  to  the  point  of  taking 
pride  in  it  has  a  mental  interest  in  perfection  that 
will  spread  to  other  things,  by  degrees.  It  may  take 
a  little  pedagogical  skill  on  the  part  of  the  officer 


124  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

to  make  it  spread,  an  occasional  *  *  Do  this  as  you  do 
your  'Right  shoulder,  arms,'  "  but  it  is  a  permanent 
resource,  a  high  point  in  morale  to  which  other 
points  can  be  levelled  up. 

It  marks,  among  other  things,  the  high  point  of 
obedience;  for  in  a  body  of  men  at  drill  the  response 
to  the  word  of  command  becomes  as  automatic  as 
the  response  of  the  body  to  the  will.  All  command- 
ers make  instinctive  use  of  the  attitude  of  attention 
for  communicating  orders  and  instructions  of  im- 
portance :  for  this  attitude  forms  the  sluiceway  do^vn 
w^hich  the  disposition  of  obedience  is  communicated 
from  the  drill-head,  so  to  speak,  to  the  outlying  por- 
tions of  the  day's  duty.  And  many  a  commander 
has  found,  in  practical  experience,  that  troops  get- 
ting slightly  out  of  hand  for  any  reason  may  be 
restored  to  control  by  the  call  to  attention,  and  the 
repetition  of  a  few  of  the  well-known  formations 
of  close  order. 

It  is  sometimes  felt  that  just  this  element  of  obe- 
dience has  something  in  it  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  free  man ;  that  however  valuable  or  necessary  it 
may  be  for  purposes  of  war-making  it  is  oppressive 
and  damaging  to  the  individual;  and  that  America, 
for  this  reason,  should  always  fight  shy  of  the  train- 
ing to  arms,  which  cannot  be  separated  from  train- 
ing to  an  undue  subordination.  There  is  a  very 
simple  answer  to  this  scruple  from  a  psychological 
law  of  habit,  which  deserves  to  be  better  known. 

The  law  is  this:  that  the  habit  which  is  formed 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DRILL  125 

by  any  act  or  series  of  acts  depends  on  the  motive 
of  the  act  more  than  on  the  external  shape  of  it. 

For  instance,  a  solicitor  for  some  charity  comes 
into  my  oflSce  and  asks  for  a  subscription.  If  I 
make  a  subscription,  what  habit  am  I  forming?  No- 
body can  answer  unless  he  knows  why  I  do  it.  If 
I  do  it  because  I  see  everybody  else  is  doing  it  and 
I  don't  want  to  be  out  of  line,  I  am  forming  the 
habit  of  social  imitation,  not  of  charity.  If  I  do  it 
because  I  want  to  impress  somebody  who  happens 
to  be  in  the  office  at  the  time,  I  am  forming  the  habit 
of  pretense.  If  I  do  it  to  get  rid  of  the  solicitor, 
the  habit  of  evasion.  The  habit-forming  power  of 
any  act  is  determined  from  inside,  not  from  outside. 

For  this  reason  the  obedience  of  a  free  man,  who 
is  a  consenting  party  to  the  relation  of  obedience, 
will  never  form  the  same  habit  as  the  obedience  of  a 
man  who  acts  from  fear.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
Prussianize  America,  even  with  the  same  system  of 
compulsory  service ;  for  the  obedience  of  the  Amer- 
ican would  never  have  the  same  inner  stamp.*  It 
is  as  foolish  to  suppose  that  universal  service  would 
mechanize  and  subdue  the  spirits  of  Americans  as 

*There  is  also  a  difference  in  methods  of  discipline,  which  ia  well 
brought  out  by  Major  General  William  A.  Pew,  in  his  capital  little 
book  on  "Making  a  Soldier": 

"We  can  follow  the  lead  of  the  old  Prussian  model,  or  that  of 
West  Point.  What  I  call  the  old  Prussian  model  was  described 
by  Marshal  Saxe  when  he  declared  that  soldiers  should  be  machines 
animated  only  by  the  voice  of  their  commander.  There  is  one 
drawback  to  this  system.  When  men  are  trained  into  machines, 
they  become  subject  to  the  limitations  of  machines.  The  West  Point 
method  tries  to  make  good  where  the  old  Prussian  system  runs  the 
risk  of  failure.  The  cadets  are  put  through  a  novel  type  of  efficiency 
calisthenics.    Major  Koehler  in  his  drills  gives  any  descriptive  order 


126  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

to  suppose  that  voluntary  working  for  wages  has 
that  effect.  If  the  war  should  drag  on  for  a  long 
series  of  years,  there  would  be  a  real  danger  from 
the  slow  enfeeblement  of  the  larger  powers  of  per- 
sonal initiative  involved  in  plan-making,  but  not 
from  the  relation  of  obedience.  As  a  nation  we 
stand  to  gain  a  great  deal  from  the  development  of 
alert  and  careful  attention  to  directions,  and  exacti- 
tude in  executing  them.  In  the  Special  Training  De- 
tachments, in  which  technical  training  is  carried  on 
side  by  side  with  military  drill,  there  is  a  practi- 
cally unanimous  testimony  on  the  part  of  the  tech- 
nical instructors  that  the  work  is  improved  both  in 
quality  and  in  speed  by  its  association  with  the  mil- 
itary ideal.*  The  men  bring  to  their  carpentry, 
sheet  metal  work,  lathe-work,  electric  wiring,  etc., 
the  mental  atmosphere  of  attention  and  "pep," 

It  goes  without  saying  that  if  discipline  is  to  have 
any  value  for  the  individual  subject  to  it,  the  rules, 
orders,  and  commands  to  which  he  submits  his  will, 
must  be,  on  the  whole,  wise.  In  the  special  discipline 
of  drill  or  technique  this  question  does  not  arise :  the 
more  perfectly  one  has  mastered  the  unit  operations, 
the  fitter  he  is  to  carry  out  any  general  order  which 
employs  them,  be  that  order  wise  or  foolish.    But  the 

that  comes  into  his  head.  He  may  say,  'Right  hand  on  hip,"  'Left 
hand  on  nose,'  or  anything  else.  The  cadets  have  to  keep  awake. 
The  West  Point  idea  of  subordination  is  not  the  unintelligent  re- 
sponse of  a  machine,  but  the  loyal  support  of  an  active  mind,  whicn 
grasps  the  purpose  of  a  com.mandcr  and  strives  to  advance  it  with 
force  and  energy."     Pages  51-53. 

•Which  may  be  dependent  on  the  presence  of  a  real  war  to  give 
these  drill  exercises  their  value.     I  do  not  prejudge  this  question. 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DRILL  127 

wider  discipline  of  obedience  to  the  general  control 
of  army  authority  is  another  matter,  and  its  value 
is  more  conditional.  If  men  are  at  odds  with  the 
general  spirit  or  management  of  things;  if  they 
chafe  under  their  rules  or  hate  their  rulers — whether 
the  fault  is  in  the  rules  or  in  the  commanders  or  in 
themselves,  the  regime  may  bring  out  the  worst  in 
them  rather  than  the  best.  External  discipline,  held 
in  place  by  a  vista  of  punishment,  develops  chiefly 
the  powers  of  deception  and  evasion ;  makes  adepts 
at  beating  the  rules,  and  turns  the  times  of  freedom 
and  furlough  into  times  of  kicking  over  the  traces. 
And  this  will  be  to  some  extent  the  tendency  of  every 
system  which  pretends  to  a  greater  measure  of  in- 
fallibility than  it  actually  possesses,  or  which  as- 
sumes a  ** military"  finality  of  form  which  it  cannot 
make  good  in  substance. 

But  in  a  democratic  army  these  dangers  are  at  a 
minimum ;  the  absolute  theory  of  command  is  every- 
where subordinated  to  the  human  equation ;  author- 
ity has  learned  that  it  must  be  built  on  confidence 
and  good- will,  that  the  obedience  of  the  spirit  is 
something  which  commanders  have  to  earn. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  practical  value  of  discipline. 
I  wish  to  add  a  few  words  regarding  its  meaning. 

There  is  a  great  contrast  between  the  parade 
ground  and  the  trenches;  and  it  is  sometimes  felt 
that  the  soldier  of  the  parade  ground  has  vanished 
when  the  soldier  of  the  trenches  takes  his  place. 


128  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

This  is  very  far  from  being  the  case.  For  one  of 
the  most  genuine  needs  of  the  man  under  harsh, 
racking,  destable  conditions  is  for  what  I  will  call 
a  ^^self  of  reference," — that  is,  a  state  of  mind 
which  he  can  remember  as  being  normal,  even 
though  he  cannot  attain  it.  We  live  more  than  we 
realize  upon  what  we  can  hark  back  to:  we  forget 
our  mathematical  proofs,  but  we  remember  the  self 
that  knew  them ;  we  slip  away  from  our  best  insights, 
but  we  remember  and  respect  the  self  that  had 
them.  The  soldier  in  mortal  diflficulty  will  have  no 
more  valuable  asset  than  the  memory  of  his  own 
parade-ground  self,  as  the  being  who  foresaw  just 
these  perils,  but  in  the  large  only,  and  so  in  a 
sounder  and  more  normal  proportion. 

But  this  self  of  reference  does  not  come  into  be- 
ing of  itself:  it  has  to  be  built.  It  is  rather  mis- 
leading to  speak  of  the  parade-ground  self,  or  any 
other  feature  of  discipline,  as  having  a  meaning. 
Like  other  elements  of  ceremony,  they  have  only 
the  meaning  that  is  put  into  them.  An  act  of  formal 
courtesy,  a  handshake,  a  bow,  may  mean  anything 
or  nothing ;  likewise,  a  military  salute.  But  all  such 
formalities  are  capable  of  being  taken  as  symbols; 
and  it  is  worth  while  to  consider  them  in  that  light. 

It  is  notable  that  the  life  of  the  soldier,  a  constant 
tussle  with  the  most  literal  of  literal  facts,  should 
be  so  full  of  symbols,  many  of  them  relics  of  ancient 
usages.  The  ''present  arms"  and  "parade  rest," 
the  position  of  "attention,"  the  uniform  itself,  the 


DISCIPLINE  AND  DRILL  129 

insignia,  the  flag,  the  bugle  calls,  all  the  curious  dis- 
tinctive elements  of  military  language,  parade,  and 
review,  are  like  so  many  signs  manual  of  the  most 
ancient  of  all  fraternities,  one  more  conservative  of 
its  rites,  sentiments,  and  customs  than  the  law.  This 
fact  is  of  itself  a  powerful  evidence  of  the  psycho- 
logical value  of  these  symbols. 

The  history  of  an  observance  does  not  determine 
its  present  meaning:  though  it  may  add  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  hand  salute  to  regard  it  as  a  relic  of 
the  practice  of  lifting  the  visor  to  an  honored  knight 
in  the  days  of  tourney.  The  meaning  of  a  saluta- 
tion must  grow  out  of  present  conditions ;  the  salute 
should  mean  a  sign  of  respect  to  the  will  of  a  nation, 
embodied  in  an  individual  figure.  If  to  any  man  it 
means  a  sign  of  subordination  to  a  person,  it  can 
only  be  because  he  had  so  interpreted  it  himself. 
The  salute  should  be  understood  as  a  recognition  of 
the  tie  between  the  individual  giving  the  salute  and 
the  organism  of  the  army,  whatever  that  may  mean 
for  him.  And  if  such  meaning  is  once  made  clear, 
the  repetition  of  the  symbol — for  the  most  part 
without  any  explicit  thought  of  its  meaning — will 
still  tend  to  solidify  in  subconsciousness  the  senti- 
ment it  signifies. 

Few  human  traditions  are  richer  in  fine  symbols 
than  the  army.  There  are  few  ceremonies  so  ade- 
quate as  that  act  of  reverence  in  which  officers  and 
men  together  salute  the  flag  at  ** retreat."  And 
there  are  few  notes  of  music  that  can  convey  so 


130  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

much  as  the  bugle-song  of  ''taps"  at  the  close  of  a 
soldier's  day,  or  of  a  soldier's  life. 

Such  elements  of  discipline  are  at  the  same  time 
elements  of  art,  and  follow  the  laws  of  art.  They 
may  be  perfunctory  and  vapid:  they  may  be  capi- 
talized, enriched  by  daily  deposit.  An  oflBcer  can 
do  much  to  1511  or  empty  a  given  bit  of  ceremony  for 
his  men.  A  man  may  fill  or  empty  it  for  himself. 
But  whatever  is  put  into  such  forms  will  be  returned 
with  interest.  They  become  stabilizers,  w^ays  of  es- 
cape from  the  ups  and  downs  of  feeling,  ways  of 
tacit  access  to  the  elusive  background  of  meaning 
and  to  the  * '  self  of  reference ' '  therewith.  It  is  fair 
to  say  that  for  one's  own  sake  it  is  impossible  to  do 
one's  formalities  too  well. 


CHAPTER  XII 

prestige:  the  psychology  of  command 

If  there  is  a  psychological  transformation  when  a 
man  puts  on  the  uniform,  there  is  another,  not  less 
profound,  when  he  gets  his  first  chevrons  and  gives 
his  first  command.  Sometimes  I  think  that  the 
critical  moment  in  a  soldier's  career  is  the  moment 
when  he  first  acts  as  corporal  of  his  squad.  Those 
who  say  that  it  is  hard  for  an  American  to  take 
orders  may  not  realize  that  it  is  equally  hard  for 
the  average  American  to  give  them.  The  art  of 
command  is  an  art  by  itself. 

The  reasons  for  this  difficulty  are  various.  The 
main  one,  I  believe,  is  this:  that  while  the  experi- 
enced commander  forgets  his  own  special  person- 
ality, and  uses  quite  naturally  the  voice  and  author- 
ity of  the  organization,  the  raw  commander  is  con- 
scious of  his  individual  self,  and  consequently  real- 
izes that  the  words  falling  out  of  his  mouth  have 
hardly  the  weight  that  should  make  men  obey  them. 
The  relation  of  command  and  obedience  is  not  a 
relation  between  two  individuals:  a  third  and  in- 
visible party  to  the  situation  is  always  present — the 
authority  of  the  State  and  army — and  unless  this 
third  member  is  at  home  in  the  group,  the  business 
of  commanding  will  be  a  little  forced  and  thin. 

131 


132  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

There  are  other  reasons  which  apply  more  espe- 
cially to  the  American,  trained  in  a  tradition  of 
equality  which  makes  him  instinctively  feel  the  posi- 
tion of  commander  as  a  peculiarly  exposed  posi- 
tion. Dignity  and  assertiveness  are  perhaps  not 
his  strong  leads.  He  knows  he  has  to  face,  not  so 
much  the  surly  criticism  as  the  more  searching  hu- 
mor of  his  men;  he  has  still  to  learn  his  individual 
variation  on  the  one  word  which  must  never,  in  the 
army,  be  pronounced  as  it  is  spelled:  ''March." 
He  needs  the  manner  which  only  experience  can 
justify,  the  manner  of  confidence,  authority,  pres- 
tige. 

The  embarrassment  of  assuming  command  is,  in 
fact,  but  the  counterpart  of  the  embarrassment  of 
obedience:  both  are  due  to  a  false  idea  of  individ- 
ualism which  forgets  the  third  party  in  the  situa- 
tion. But  there  is  no  doubt  a  natural  psychological 
difiQculty  in  beginning  the  role  of  commander  (to 
all  but  the  unduly  rich  in  self-assurance,  who  never 
make  good  ofiScers),  a  difficulty  which  gives  rise  to 
something  like  a  superstition  about  the  "born  lead- 
ers." A  theory  of  ''prestige"  springs  up  as  of  an 
innate  quality  akin  to  genius,  which,  once  for  all, 
some  men  have  and  other  men  are  hopelessly  with- 
out. 

The  legends  of  Napoleon  have  done  much  to  en- 
force the  idea  that  there  is  something  uncanny  about 
leadership,  as  if  the  awe  which  great  leaders  un- 
questionably evoke  were  due   to   something  more 


prestige:  the  pbychology  of  command      133 

than  the  greatness  conferred  upon  them  by  men's 
inveterate  need  to  idealize  and  admire. 

Major  Eltinge  regards  prestige  in  this  way  as  a 
unique  quality,  and  surrounds  it  with  a  certain  air 
of  mystery.  ** Prestige,"  he  says,  ''causes  the  ac- 
ceptance of  an  idea  without  discussion  or  contro- 
versy .  .  .  the  suggestion  is  received  from  the  out- 
set, and  appears  most  logical  and  true  in  the  eyes  of 
all.  Orders  given  under  these  conditions  partake 
of  a  peculiar  force ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  the  best 
obeyed  commanders  are  neither  the  best  instructed, 
the  most  intelligent,  the  most  paternal,  nor  the  most 
severe,  but  are  those  that  have  innate  or  acquired 
prestige.  * ' 

Where  does  this  leave  us?  Eather  helpless  in 
cultivating  this  quality,  which  we  are  told  ''must  be 
the  dominating  quality  in  a  leader  of  men."  There 
can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  some  men  are  en- 
dowed more  highly  than  others  with  the  disposition 
to  "boss"  others,  and  with  the  natural  bearing  of 
command.  Many  begin  the  practice  in  the  cradle, 
and  have  to  have  some  of  the  disposition  extracted. 
But  I  believe  no  normal  human  being  is  without  it ; 
and  that  the  germs  of  it  are  capable  of  analysis, 
and  so  of  development.  Let  me  mention  what  seem 
to  me  the  chief  ingredients  of  prestige. 

1.  Concentration  of  purpose.  Respect  involun- 
tarily goes  to  the  man  who  respects  his  own  work, 
especially  if  he  is  so  much  absorbed  in  it  as  to  for- 


134  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

get  his  own  private  self  and  convenience  at  the  de- 
mand of  the  job.  Men  take  subconscious  note  of 
what  their  officers  prize,  and  of  what  these  officers 
ignore.  They  are  never  deceived  about  what  their 
commander  is  putting  first  in  his  scale  of  impor- 
tance. They  do  not  expect  him  always  to  put  their 
comfort  before  his  own; — though  the  paternal  ele- 
ment which  makes  for  affection  will  add  to  prestige 
if  the  other  elements  be  present:  but  they  know  at 
once  whether  he  puts  his  ease  above  his  duty,  and 
they  know  also  whether  his  duty  is  a  grind  to  him  or 
a  thing  he  relishes  and  tries  to  grow  up  to.  It  is 
only  the  latter  man  that  can  hope  for  prestige.  The 
foundation  stone  in  the  Napoleonic  psychology,  as 
I  see  it,  was  an  absorbing  passion  for  the  art  of  war. 

2.  Competence.  A  quality  which  almost  always 
follows  from  the  first,  but  not  always.  It  implies 
painstaking  forethought  so  that  one  is  not  caught  at 
a  loss  for  information,  nor  taken  by  surprise.  It  is 
forethought  which  enables  a  man  to  be  the  source 
of  knowledge  to  those  about  him ;  and  one  can  hardly 
have  prestige  who  leans  habitually  on  others  for 
his  facts.  It  is  forethought  again  which  lays  the 
foundation  for  prompt  decision  and  resolute  action ; 
and  one  can  hardly  have  prestige  who  falters  and 
vacillates,  and  therefore  fails. 

Failure  does  not  destroy  prestige,  when  it  is 
plainly  not  due  to  incompetence :  the  retreat  of  1914 
left  many  a  leader  on  the  side  of  France  and  Eng- 
land stronger  with  his  men  than  before — Joffre  and 


prestige:  the  psychology  of  command      135 

Foch  among  them.*  But  a  few  simple  successes  due 
to  plain  forethought  will  create  the  tradition  of 
success  which  is  half  the  battle  of  prestige. 

One  need  hardly  assume  in  the  personality  of 
great  commanders  any  other  native  trait  than  that 
of  surpassing  competence,  with  the  acquired  ability 
to  think  as  quickly  and  firmly  in  public  as  in  solitude, 
and  in  emergency  as  in  leisure. 

3.  Honesty  and  generosity.  The  man  who  cares 
so  much  for  prestige  that  he  will  not  admit  a  mistake 
is  sure  to  lose  it.  No  man  becomes  strong  with  his 
followers  by  belittling  their  insight  in  order  to 
fortify  the  contrast  between  them  and  himself:  the 
great  leader  is  one  who  makes  his  associates  great, 
and  gives  them  rather  more  than  due  credit  for  any 
wisdom  they  possess.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  one 
can  acquire  prestige  who  worries  about  it,  and  more 
particularly  if  he  tries  to  build  it  on  'bluff.' 

One  bit  of  bluff  is  perhaps  allowable,  namely,  that 
of  keeping  out  of  sight  any  disturbance  you  may  feel 
in  an  emergency.  But  even  here,  the  best  way  to  get 
rid  of  excitement,  oftentimes,  is  to  blow  it  off  rather 
than  bottle  it  up.    For  when  you  try  to  surpress  it 

•Stephane  Lauzanne  explains  the  victory  of  the  Marne  partly  by 
generalship,  and  partly  by  the  morale  of  the  troops,  "armies  which 
without  exception  had  kept  intact  their  fighting  spirit,  •  that  ia, 
their  faith  in  themselves,  in  their  leaders,  in  the  destiny  of  their 
country,  in  the  beauty  of  the  cause  for  which  they  fought. 

"I  remember  asking  many  of  the  oflBcera  attached  to  the  forces 
which  after  the  battle  of  Charleroi  retreated  under  a  broiling  sun 
along  roads  burning  with  heat  through  a  suffocating  dust,  how  they 
felt  at  that  disheartening  time.  'We  did  not  know  where  we  were 
going  nor  what  we  were  doing,  but  we  did  know  one  thing, — that 
we  would  beat  them.' " 


136  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

you  show  to  yourself  a  sort  of  fear  of  your  own 
emotion. 

It  is  also  a  concession  to  human  nature  to  transfer 
an  officer  from  the  command  in  which  he  has  made 
his  maiden  mistakes  to  one  in  which  he  can  act  with 
the  advantage  of  the  unknown,  receiving  the  benefit 
of  all  doubts.  But  here  again,  a  man  of  genuine 
candor  and  strength  of  character  has  no  need  of 
this  artifice.  The  surest  basis  for  prestige  is  the 
assumption  that  one  is  certain  to  be  knowm,  sooner 
or  later,  for  what  one  is. 

4.  Dignity  and  symbolism  of  behavior.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  much  of  the  quality  of  prestige  lies 
in  the  manner,  the  decision  of  gesture,  the  unflinch- 
ing expectation  of  being  obeyed.  It  is  also  true  that 
these  qualities  cannot  be  laid  on  by  mere  dint  of  will. 
It  is  they,  perhaps,  which  chiefly  give  rise  to  the 
superstition  regarding  prestige.  But  it  is  they 
which  naturally  follow,  as  the  outward  expression 
of  the  qualities  above  mentioned. 

Dignity  comes  from  seeing  things  in  their  right 
proportion.  It  has  no  opposition  to  fun  and  com- 
radeship with  the  men.  In  the  etiquette  of  all 
armies,  some  barriers  are  placed  which  prevent 
undue  familiarity  of  officers  with  men ;  but  there  are 
no  barriers  to  an  open  human  relationship,  and  to 
humor.  The  test  of  dignity  is  not  stiffness  or 
haughtiness,  but  elasticity, — the  power  of  making  a 
quick  transition  from  fun  to  business,  and  of  carry- 
ing your  men  with  you. 


prestige:  the  psychology  of  command      137 

But  dignity  of  behavior  is  not  enough  without  the 
second  quality  above  mentioned, — symbolism.  This 
implies  first  of  all,  that  the  officer's  words  and 
gestures  should  not  alone  tell  what  is  to  be  done, 
but  suggest  also  the  spirit  of  doing  it.  If  you  expect 
commands  to  be  executed  with  snap  and  vigor,  this 
quality  must  precede,  in  the  tone  and  attitude  with 
which  you  give  the  command.  And  symbolism  im- 
plies, besides  this,  that  the  action  of  a  man  is  an 
index  to  his  habitual  thinking.  Gestures  express 
the  subconscious  parts  of  the  mind ;  they  reveal  what 
words  cannot,  the  mental  region  in  which  a  man 
lives.  If  he  is  seeing  the  horizons  of  his  own  office, 
and  is  filled  with  the  meaning  and  issues  of  the 
campaign,  these  things  will  make  themselves  felt, 
involuntarily,  in  his  manner.  The  symbolism  which 
in  the  ritual  of  the  army  is  concentrated  in  the  occa- 
sional ceremonies  will  be  constantly  present  in  his 
actions ;  without  any  effort  on  his  part,  his  carriage 
will  be  itself  a  ceremony,  individual  and  natural. 

In  choosing  its  officers  for  their  personal  quali- 
fications, the  army  does  not  leave  them  to  work  out 
the  problem  of  command  unaided:  it  supplies  them 
with  some  nest-egg  of  original  capital  in  the  way 
of  the  dignity  and  symbolism  that  enter  into  pres- 
tige. By  the  insignia  of  rank,  by  making  them  the 
channel  of  information  to  the  men,  by  supplying 
them  with  special  knowledge  about  situations  and 
plans,  by  backing  their  native  authority  with  the 
whole  weight  of  its  will,  its  punishments  and  re- 


138  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

wards,  it  does  all  that  an  external  power  could  do 
to  mount  and  equip  the  officer's  own  power. 

The  army  creates  the  office;  it  cannot  create  the 
man.  Prestige  can  only  result  when  the  trappings 
and  powers  of  office  fit  the  man  like  a  natural  gar- 
ment because  he  has  grown  into  them.  The  officer 
who  falls  back  on  his  office,  has  frequently  to  invoke 
its  authority  and  punishments,  is  not  on  the  way  to 
prestige:  for  this  can  come  only  when  he  is  trans- 
parent, so  to  speak,  to  the  office,  feeling  no  distinc- 
tion between  it  and  himself,  and  so  suggesting  none. 
Then,  he  gives  an  order  without  the  shadow  of  sug- 
gestion that  it  might  be  disobeyed:  and  his  abso- 
lute expectation  of  obedience  becomes  a  powerful 
factor  in  bringing  about  the  reality. 

In  reaching  this  state  of  mind  in  which  authorita- 
tiveness  has  become  second  nature,  there  is  no  sub- 
stitute for  experience.  It  is  natural  that  in  a  thou- 
sand matters  of  judgment,  of  how  much  and  how 
little  to  require,  only  the  seasoned  officer  can  have 
the  true  intuition  which  gives  simplicity  and  cer- 
tainty in  command.  The  beginner  will  at  times  be 
too  severe  for  fear  of  being  too  lenient,  and  at  others 
too  lenient  for  fear  of  being  too  severe.  It  is  in 
human  nature  I  will  not  say  to  stand,  but  to  prefer, 
being  held  to  rigorous  standards, — but  only  on  one 
condition :  that  beneath  the  iron  will  there  is  kno-\vn 
to  be  a  complete  knowledge  and  consideration  of  the 
limits  of  the  human  organism.    As  long  as  obedience 


prestige:  the  psychology  of  command      139 

is  an  act  of  confidence  which  commits  vital  interests 
into  the  hands  of  officers,  command  must  be  an  act 
of  thorough  responsibility ;  and  a  large,  though  un- 
scheduled, part  of  the  life  of  an  army  consists  in 
the  gradual  education  of  the  officers  by  the  privates, 
through  their  spontaneous  reactions.  Hence  there 
is  not,  and  there  ought  not  to  be,  prestige  apart  from 
experience,  none  like  that  of  the  man  who  has  been 
tested  and  has  made  good,  who  knows  his  instru- 
ment, and  is  fortified  against  miscalculation. 

In  his  account  of  experiences  as  a  dragoon  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  Christian  Mallett  tells  of  a 
speech  by  General  Foch  to  the  officers  of  his  unit: 

''Listening  to  the  General  was  like  experiencing 
a  species  of  shock.  He  hammered  out  his  words  and 
scanned  his  phrases  in  a  manner  which  made  us 
feel  ill  at  ease.  His  speech  was  a  flagellation,  and 
we  felt  a  sort  of  moral  abaissement  as  a  result  of  it. 
His  look  seized  us  and  held  us. 

"First  he  spoke  to  us  of  our  mission,  of  the  utility 
of  training  the  men  in  view  of  the  coming  fatigues : 

"  'Train  their  arms,  train  their  legs,  train  their 
muscles,  train  their  backs.  You  possess  fine  quali- 
ties: draw  on  them  from  the  soles  of  your  feet  if 
necessary  but  get  them  into  your  heads.  I  have  no 
use  for  people  who  are  said  to  be  animated  by  good 
intentions.  Good  intentions  are  not  enough.  I  want 
people  who  are  determined  to  get  there,  and  who 
do.' 

"There  are  shreds  of  his  phrases  that  remain 
graven  upon  my  memory,  curt  short  phrases,  punc- 


140  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

tuated  by  a  sharp  gesture,  or  by  an  indescribable 
look  of  the  eye : 

"  *If  you  want  to  overturn  that  wall,  don't  blunt 
your  bayonet  point  on  it;  what  is  necessary  is  to 
break  it,  shatter  it,  overturn  it,  stamp  on  it,  and 
walk  over  the  ruins,  for  we  are  going  to  walk  over 
ruins.  If  we  have  not  done  so  already  .  .  .  (and 
here  he  suddenly  lowered  his  voice,  and  gave  it  an 
intonation  almost  mysterious)  it  is  because  we  were 
not  ready.  We  lacked  explosives,  bombs,  grenades, 
minnewerfers,  which  we  now  have.  And  we  are 
going  to  strike :  for  we  have  a  stock  such  as  you  can- 
not even  have  an  idea  of.  We  are  going  to  swamp 
the  enemy,  strike  him  everyivhere  at  once, — in  his 
defenses,  in  his  morale, — harass  him,  madden  him, 
crush  him.    We  will  march  over  nothing  but  ruins.' 

"Then  he  went  off  quite  naturally,  without  any 
theatrical  effect.  He  said  just  what  he  had  to  say, 
and  he  did  not  say  a  word  too  many.    He  saluted  us : 

''  *I  hope,  gentlemen,  to  have  the  honor  of  seeing 
you  again.' 

*'A  moment  later  his  motor  car  was  carrying  him 
off." 

In  this  account,  all  the  above-mentioned  qualities 
are  exemplified,  and  in  addition  the  quality  which  is 
at  the  basis  of  all  of  them,  invincible  resolution,  that 
undismayable,  undefeatable  determination  to  win, 
founded  on  a  grasp  of  the  situation  capable  of  pull- 
ing victory  out  of  apparent  disaster,  that  could  well 
come  to  men  of  less  force  as  *'a  species  of  shock." 
Such  a  man  through  his  eye,  through  his  voice, 
through  his  gesture,  through  the  substance  of  what 


pkestige:  the  psychology  of  command      141 

he  says,  through  an  absorption  in  his  work  and  a 
belief  in  his  mission, — homely  qualities  rising  to  the 
point  of  genius — can  infuse  his  o^\ti  state  of  mind 
and  will  into  his  men  and  magnify  them. 

Mr.  Yeats  has  defined  genius  as  the  deliberate 
choice  of  living  with  the  major  issues  of  life.  The 
simple  and  poor  of  the  world  live  with  these  major 
issues, — life  and  death,  fortune  and  misfortune,  dan- 
gers and  hazards  of  all  sorts, — not  by  choice  but  by 
necessity;  and  men  of  genius  often  prefer  to  find 
their  associates  among  them  (Mr.  Yeats  was  think- 
ing of  Synge  at  the  time)  because  they  find  their 
proper  interests  there.  Whether  or  not  this  is  true 
of  other  kinds  of  genius,  it  may  be  taken  as  giving 
a  helpful  light  upon  military  genius, — for  this  too 
might  be  described  as  the  deliberate  preference  of 
living  with  the  major  issues.  And  this  is  certainly 
the  secret  of  prestige,  so  far  as  it  has  a  secret:  it 
is,  as  we  said,  a  kind  of  transparency  of  a  man  to 
that  greater  thing,  the  will  of  army  and  nation, 
which  visibly  is  working  through  his  agency.  With 
this  understanding  of  prestige  and  of  genius, 
we  can  readily  agree  that  prestige  is  a  matter  of 
genius.  But  it  is  not  out  of  the  reach  of  any  officer 
who  has  the  capacity  to  desire  it,  and  the  moral 
courage  to  pay  its  price. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

MORALE-BUILDING  FACTORS 

We  have  spoken  of  the  qualities  which  constitute 
morale  in  officers  and  men.  We  have  so  far  said  lit- 
tle of  the  chief  enemies  of  morale  which  the  soldier 
has  to  meet,  especially  of  fear,  because  we  wish  to 
speak  of  them  more  fully  by  themselves.  But  before 
doing  this,  let  me  bring  together  here  for  summary 
view,  the  various  factors  that  help  to  build  morale, 
several  of  which  have  already  been  incidentally 
mentioned. 

Certain  of  these  factors  are  mechanical;  they 
affect  morale  automatically  wiihout  requiring  sepa- 
rate attention.  Anyone  who  has  watched  a  group 
of  recruits  go  through  the  early  stages  of  training 
until  they  are  reasonably  skilled  in  the  close-order 
work  will  have  seen  that  changes  are  taking  place  in 
their  mental  attitude  at  the  same  time.  I  shall  begin 
with  these  automatic  influences,  and  first  of  all,  the 
simple  lapse  of  time. 

1.  Time.  The  average  raw  recruit  is  a  bundle  of 
ignorance  and  corresponding  embarrassment  if  not 
dismay,  regarding  the  ways  of  war.  Time  answers 
his  questions,  gives  him  self-confidence,  reassures 
him  regarding  the  disposition  of  the  world  of  neces- 
sity that  surrounds  him.     He  has  come  with  the 

142 


MORALE-BUILDING  FACTORS  143 

ragged  strands  of  broken-off  interests  badgering  hia 
mind :  the  new  business  has  as  yet  little  if  any  hold 
on  his  fancy.  Time  reverses  the  situation:  the 
former  interests  heal  over — unless  there  is  some- 
thing at  home  that  keeps  them  sore — and  the  new 
interests  acquire  warmth  and  actuality  of  them- 
selves. Time  gives  back  the  mental  bearings,  the 
new  points  of  reference  for  mental  comings  and 
goings,  which  were  momentarily  lost  in  the  days  of 
transition. 

2.  Physical  condition.  All  purposes  and  habits 
have  a  twofold  base,  physical  and  mental :  and  each 
of  these  two  sides  affects  the  other.  The  lethargic 
body  has  fears  and  dreads  that  the  sound  body  is 
free  from.  Apathy  is  largely  a  compound  of  sub- 
conscious shrinkings  from  hardship  and  subcon- 
scious fears,  which  generate  an  equally  subconscious 
wish  that  by  some  lucky  accident  the  brunt  of 
things  would  fall — anywhere  else  than  on  number 
one.  These  shrinkings  are  largely  due  to  physical 
softness  and  unfitness. 

We  have  to  bear  in  mind  that  morale,  as  a  state 
of  readiness  to  act,  requires  an  alertness  and  con- 
fidence in  one's  powers  of  action.  "Self-reliance," 
says  an  army  manual,  "is  after  all  a  physical  qual- 
ity, as  it  induces  men  to  dare,  because  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  ability  to  do."  I  dare  say  that  there 
is  something  more  in  self-reliance  than  the  physical 
ability;  but  certain  it  is  that  lazy  muscles  and  slug- 
gish blood  and  half-good  digestion  with  half-good 


144  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

sleep  are  no  fit  soil  for  purposes  to  grow  in  that 
promise  effort  and  pain. 

Conversely,  physical  fitness  changes  the  whole 
mental  attitude.  Generous  willingness  to  assume 
the  troubles  of  others  as  well  as  one's  own  is  pos- 
sible only  to  those  who  have  margins  of  energy. 
The  primary  enemy  of  morale  is  not  pessimism,  it  is 
plain  apathy  or  indifference;  and  the  conditions  of 
camp  life,  especially  with  an  abundance  of  athletics 
in  the  form  of  vigorous  and  aggressive  games,  box- 
ing, etc.,  are  such  that  indifference,  feebleness  of 
spirit,  self-centeredness,  without  much  attention,  die 
a  natural  death. 

3.  Skill.  Ability  to  do  a  thing  generates  a  wish 
to  do  it.  This  is  true  of  skill  with  rifle  and  bayonet 
as  well  as  of  skill  with  the  instruments  of  peace :  it 
is  as  true  of  tactical  and  strategic  ability  as  it  is  of 
political  ability.  It  has  been  recognized  as  one  of 
the  dangers  of  highly  trained  military  establish- 
ments in  time  of  peace:  the  German  army  having 
been  brought  to  an  almost  imperative  sense  of 
ability,  a  huge  restless  impulse  to  go  to  arms  per- 
vaded the  nation, — that  "tramping,  drilling  foolery 
at  the  heart  of  Europe,"  as  Mr.  Wells  described  it, 
aching  to  set  itself  in  motion.  There  is  plenty  to 
offset  this  wish  in  the  wiser  military  heads;  our 
own  army  has  never  been  an  irritant  toward  war. 
But  given  the  war,  the  same  impulsive  quality  of 
conscious  skill  becomes  one  of  the  primary  assets 
of  morale. 


MORALE-BUILDINQ  FACTORS  145 

4.  Authority  of  the  environment.  The  spirit  of 
the  army  will  work  its  way  through  the  skin  of  the 
recruit  without  any  effort  on  the  army's  part.  Men 
who  live  much  together  differ  not  less  widely  in 
opinions,  etc.,  than  men  who  live  apart;  but  in  the 
undiscussed  things  they  acquire  insensibly  a  com- 
mon outlook.  The  purposes  that  are  in  the  air,  and 
are  taken  more  or  less  for  granted,  seize  upon 
them.  Especially,  the  presence  of  officers  whom  the 
men  have  learned  to  respect,  who  have  the  prestige 
we  were  lately  speaking  of,  gradually  makes  the 
whole  detachment  over  into  their  likeness.  Assum- 
ing that  there  are  no  mental  hangings-back  which 
prevent  this  factor  from  having  its  full  effect,  I 
should  judge  this  natural  self-propagation  of  the 
spirit  of  the  group  and  of  its  leaders  to  be  the  great- 
est single  factor  in  the  making  of  morale.  A  train- 
ing detachment  seldom  fails  to  take  on  the  character 
of  its  commanding  officer  to  a  greater  or  less  degree. 

5.  The  community.  A  part  of  the  environment 
that  cannot  be  ignored  in  its  morale-making  effect 
is  the  civil  community  in  which  the  detachment  is 
located.  And  nothing  has  been  made  clearer,  in  our 
short  experience  at  war,  than  that  communities  have 
much  to  learn  in  the  exercise  of  this  function.  An 
undue  indifference  on  the  one  side  to  the  welfare 
and  entertainment  of  the  men,  and  an  undue  and 
fussy  hero-worship  on  the  other,  highly  embarrass- 
ing to  commanding  officers,  are  extremes  between 
which  the  steering  is  not  easy. 


146  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

The  young  women  of  a  community  are  perhaps 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  quality  of  the  self-esteem 
of  enlisted  men.  It  is  a  fair,  and  not  unanswerable 
question  for  each  community  whether  on  the  whole 
it  is  aiding  soldierly  sobriety  of  self-judgment,  or 
encouraging  the  recruit  to  collect  too  much  in  ad- 
vance upon  his  undoubted  future  heroism.  The  re- 
cruit has  not  ceased  to  be  human  because  he  has  be- 
come a  soldier. 

6.  Elimination  of  friction.  Having  mentioned,  so 
far,  morale-forming  agencies  which  have  their  effect 
without  anj'-  direct  oflScial  effort,  I  come  to  a  point 
at  which  deliberate  effort  can  well  be  directed. 
Morale  is  a  plant  that  will  grow — to  a  certain  extent 
— by  itself,  if  hindrances  are  removed.  A  little  psy- 
chological discernment  used  in  discovering  points  of 
friction,  ignorance,  misunderstanding,  or  avoidable 
discomfort  in  the  order  of  living,  will  do  much  to 
remove  unnecessary  barriers  to  the  growth  of  fight- 
ing spirit.  For  there  are  queer  paradoxes  in  human 
nature,  which  allow  those  who  have  given  all  with- 
out reserve  to  balk  inwardly  at  trifles,  such  as  food 
slightly  below  camp  standard,  when  they  regard 
those  minor  troubles  as  unnecessary. 

Perhaps  there  is  here  a  general  principle  of  train- 
ing, namely.  No  hardship  for  hardship's  sake.  Mor- 
ale, which  includes  a  good-will  to  endure  whatever 
the  undertaking  calls  for,  cannot  be  made  without 
hardship;  but  for  training  purposes  a  line  should 
be  dra\^ai  at  the  point  where  the  difficulty  in  question 


MORALE-BUILDING  FACTORS  147 

ceases  to  be  a  genuine  preparation,  and  becomes  a 
mere  stunt.  Thus,  for  example,  night  guard  duty 
is  a  normal  part  of  training.  This  may  involve, 
later  on,  standing  in  ice-water  during  winter  nights ; 
and  that  is  one  of  the  things  men  will  do  without  a 
murmur  when  it  is  necessary.  But  it  is  also  one 
of  the  things  which  nobody  is  better  fitted  for  by 
practising  it ;  and  to  require  it  as  a  part  of  training 
would  be  an  excess  of  zeal. 

The  elimination  of  friction  does  not  mean  molly- 
coddling the  army  nor  softening  the  work  of  train- 
ing: it  means  the  recognition  of  waste  motion,  the 
removal  of  useless  puzzles,  and  the  diminution  of 
hardship  which  is  without  disciplinary  value. 

7.  Appeal  to  feeling  and  imagination.  When  we 
reach  the  positive  factors  of  morale-building,  i.  e., 
those  in  which  a  direct  effort  may  be  employed,  we 
have  to  tread  with  some  care.  It  is  easy  for  a  posi- 
tive effort  to  defeat  its  own  purpose,  particularly 
if  it  is  labeled  or  recognized  as  an  effort  to  improve 
morale.  There  is  always  something  dismal  and 
pathetic,  whether  in  college  athletics  or  elsewhere, 
in  an  effort  to  arouse  a  spirit  which  the  very  effort 
declares  to  be  lacking.* 

But  it  is  possible  at  times  to  appeal  directly  to 

•So,  for  example,  the  important  work  of  introducing  amuse- 
ments of  various  sorts  into  camp  life,  if  it  gives  the  impression 
of  sugar-coating  a  pill  rather  than  of  meeting  a  definite  demand, 
will  have  a  reaction  not  wholly  expected.  Camps  cannot  have  too 
much  good  entertainment  in  the  right  place;  but  the  sense  that 
"we"  are  being  good  to  "you"  must  be  kept  out  of  it.  The  best 
entertainments  are  those  in  which  the  men  themselves  take  part; 
and  the  best  of  all  is  camp  music. 


.  148  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

the  feeling  of  soldiers  in  training;  and  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  the  fundamental  feelings  involved  in 
war-making  of  which  we  spoke  at  the  outset,* 
must  be  enlisted  if  the  morale  is  to  be  more 
than  a  Platonic  affair.  These  feelings,  however, 
can  hardly  live  without  the  aid  of  imagination.  An 
historic  opportunity  is  something  that  the  physical 
eye  wholly  fails  to  perceive ;  and  in  a  sense,  this  war, 
whose  origins  are  so  remote  from  us,  and  whose  op- 
erations are  so  iimnense,  has  to  be  fought  on  the 
strength  of  imagination. 

Feeling  and  imagination  are  communicated  most 
directly  by  contagion  from  those  who  have  it;  and 
this  is  true  not  only  of  the  fundamental  feelings  in 
the  soldier's  purpose,  but  also  of  those  powerful 
auxiliary  feelings,  his  pride  as  a  soldier  and  his 
pride  in  his  unit. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war,  when  Great  Britain 
was  faced  with  the  problem  of  making  an  immense 
and  rapid  increase  in  its  army,  it  might  have  done 
so  by  creating  many  new  regiments  out  of  the  new 
material.  Instead,  it  was  decided  as  far  as  possible 
to  increase  the  number  of  battalions  in  each  regi- 
ment, in  order  that  the  recruits  should  have  about 
them  not  alone  the  traditions  of  old  organizations, 
but  the  expectant  and  requiring  spirit  of  men  con- 
cerned to  maintain  their  historic  standards. 

A  remark  may  not  be  out  of  order  on  the  unwis- 
dom of  dealing  too  harshly  with  the  vanity  and 

♦Chapter  III. 


MOBALE-BUILDING  FACTOBS  149 

swagger  of  young  soldiers  who  are  on  the  way  to  a 
more  decent  pride.  There  are  diseases  in  all  child- 
hoods. The  soldier  has  his  own  dramatic  types, 
chesty,  ''Full  of  strange  oaths,  and  bearded  like  the 
pard,"  wanting  you  to  feel  in  him  the  old  military 
dog.  It  is  true,  the  mild-eyed  diffident  chap  may  beat 
him  out  as  a  soldier.  But  on  the  whole,  bravura  is 
the  mere  excrescence  of  a  valuable  quality,  and  the 
least  wise  thing  an  officer  can  do  is  to  humiliate  the 
man  who  is  in  the  first  stages  of  soldierly  self-con- 
sciousness. 

The  soldier's  pride  is  involved  in  the  distinction 
that  has  been  persistently  drawn  between  the 
drafted  man  and  the  volunteer.  Nobody  should  be 
permitted  to  make  this  contrast  unrebuked :  it  is  the 
whole  meaning  of  the  general  draft  that  the  dis- 
tinction shall  be  obliterated.  All  drafted  men  are 
volunteers,  but  the  volunteering  has  been  done  en 
bloc  by  their  representatives  in  Congress.  The 
nation  has  volunteered:  the  draft  is  a  method  for 
organizing  the  nation  at  war. 

The  problem  of  morale,  in  its  practical  form,  is 
very  largely  that  of  getting  rid  of  the  half-morale 
that  is  engendered  by  the  situation  of  necessary 
service  created  by  the  draft  method.  The  difficulty 
is  the  difficulty  of  all  law  as  it  descends  upon  free- 
men, "leaving  them  as  free  as  before" — yet  not 
quite  feeling  so  free.  It  is  necessary  to  insert  a 
sense  of  freedom  underneath  the  load  of  necessity ; 
this  may  be  done  by  flooding  the  man 's  own  motive 


150  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

power  until  he,  too,  wants  the  war  and  the  draft; 
but  it  can  never  be  done  while  the  fact  of  the  draft 
seems  to  him  even  slightly  a  derogation  from  his 
personal  dignity. 

8.  The  strengthening  of  belief.  With  all  that  can 
be  done  to  support  and  inspire  the  soldier's  feelings, 
the  one  durable  factor  of  morale  that  is  open  to  di- 
rect control  is  the  man's  thought;  and  the  constant 
insistence  of  our  argument  has  been  that  it  is 
through  his  thought  and  belief  that  his  serious  feel- 
ings are  most  honorably  as  well  as  most  effectively 
approached. 

Beneath  the  superficial  soldier,  sensitive  about 
his  small  discomforts,  and  ready  to  be  amused,  there 
is  a  thoughtful  soldier  who,  perhaps,  seldom  comes 
to  expression,  but  who  nevertheless  is  thinking  his 
long  thoughts  in  his  quiet  moments,  by  himself  or 
in  company  with  his  bunky.  To  a  large  degree,  men 
take  their  ideas  and  beliefs  on  trust,  from  the  crowd, 
through  the  gate  of  emotion.  And  the  soldier  is  not 
less  amenable  to  these  influences  than  other  men. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  to  no  one  is  the  individual 
issue  so  poignant  as  to  the  soldier,  and  his  private 
concern  must  nourish  his  private  thought.  The 
time  comes  when  he  must  realize  that  it  is  his  career 
that  is  going  into  the  hopper,  his  life,  possibly  the 
welfare  of  his  family.  Social  persuasions  will  not 
help  him  then, — nothing  but  his  own  convictions. 

Morale  is  at  bottom  a  state  of  will  or  purpose: 
and  the  first  factor  in  any  mature  human  purpose 


MORALE-BUILDING  FACTORS  151 

is  knowledge,  i.  e.,  knowledge  of  the  thing  to  be 
gained  by  the  purpose, — the  good  to  be  reached  or 
the  evil  to  be  averted,  or  both.  Hence,  in  any  de- 
velopment of  military  morale  the  supreme  worth  of 
the  aims  of  the  war  must  be  made  the  object  of  par- 
ticular care.* 

Certain  elements  of  morale,  the  more  personal  ele- 
ments relating  to  the  soldier's  outlook  on  religion 
and  moral  principle  in  general,  must  come  from  out- 
side the  army.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  army 
to  take  the  place  of  priest,  parent,  or  schoolmaster. 
If  an  officer  has  anything  paternal  in  his  tempera- 
ment— and  fortunately  most  officers  have — he  will 
find  many  an  unofficial  occasion  for  acting  in  all 
these  capacities  toward  individual  men.  Non-coms, 
especially  top  sergeants,  who  have  the  advantage  of 
mingling  much  with  the  members  of  the  company, 
have  many  an  opportunity  for  a  friendly  word ;  but 
if  the  captain  is  of  the  right  sort,  he  can  without  loss 
of  military  dignity  bring  much  of  the  quality  of  the 
family  into  his  entire  command;  the  French  are 

"It  is  better  to  take  this  motive  for  granted  than  to  tamper  with 
it  and  belabor  it  ineffectively,  argumentatively,  or  oratorically. 
The  inspiring  speech  always  has  its  function;  but  for  the  longer 
thoughts  of  the  soldier  in  training,  nothing  but  sober  truth  in  the 
form  of  information  and  reflection  will  give  him  the  grist  he  needs. 
Nothing  could  be  more  powerful  as  a  morale-making  agency  than  tho 
action  of  a  nation  which  should,  0,3  it  were,  lay  its  cards  on  tho 
table  before  its  soldiers  in  training,  and  say,  "These  are  the  data 
upon  which  our  decision  is  based;  this  is  ihe  history  of  the  case; 
these  are  the  principles  involved.  Judge  for  yourself."  I  dare  say 
it  is  unprecedented  in  the  history  of  warfare  that  the  United  State« 
in  the  summer  of  1918  inaugurated  just  this  undertaking  in  a 
large  number  of   its  training  detachments. 


152  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

especially  gifted  in  this  way.  But  these  are  matters 
of  personality ;  and  it  relieves  the  army  for  single- 
minded  attention  to  its  proper  work  to  have  outside 
agencies  in  co-operation  with  it, — provided  these 
agencies  do  not  become  too  numerous  and  distract- 
ing. The  church  in  some  form,  preferably  in  its 
0"\vTi  representatives  than  in  its  numerous  offshoots, 
should  be  always  accessible.  For  in  the  long  run  a 
man  must  fight  on  the  strength  of  his  religion;  his 
beliefs  about  things  above  the  human  level  permeate 
all  those  human  and  social  beliefs  which  directly 
concern  the  war. 

Belief  in  the  validity  of  the  cause,  belief  in  the 
method  of  procedure — i.  e.,  that  ivar  is  called  for, 
belief  in  the  possibility  (not  the  ease)  of  success, 
belief  in  the  army  and  its  management.  These  are 
the  chief  building-stones  for  lasting  morale, — and 
whatever  the  army  can  do  to  strengthen  these  be- 
liefs, by  direct  instruction  or  otherwise,  will  add  to 
its  resources  throughout  the  war. 

In  addition  to  these,  each  soldier  needs  a  phil- 
osophy of  life  which  enables  him  to  adjust  himself 
to  the  minor  and  major  troubles  of  his  situation  and 
work.  These  for  the  most  part,  he  must  work  out 
for  himself  in  the  school  of  experience :  but  he  may 
be  aided  by  whatever  of  light  his  personal  advisers, 
religious  and  other,  may  give  him.  And  there  is 
also  a  good  chance  that  the  psychologist  may  be  of 
use  to  him,  especially  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of 
fear. 


CHAPTER  XrV 

FEAB  AND  ITS  CONTROL 

Courage  is  the  traditional  kernel  of  morale  and  the 
characteristic  quality  of  the  soldier.  I  doubt,  how- 
ever, whether  it  is  a  distinct  and  separate  quality. 
Given  discipline,  experience,  good  condition,  pug- 
nacity, and  faith,  you  will  not  find  courage  lacking 
in  any  body  of  men.  It  is  hardly  distinct  from 
morale  in  general.  The  same  influences  that  under- 
mine morale  will  also  undermine  courage;  namely, 
indifference,  discouragement,  and  fear.  But  cour- 
age is  generally  considered  as  the  especial  element 
of  character  which  overcomes  fear.  And  as  fear  is 
universal,  we  shall  give  some  attention  to  its  nature, 
and  to  the  ways  of  meeting  it. 

Many  men  suffer,  during  their  training  days,  from 
a  fear  of  fear.  They  hope  they  will  not  funk  when 
the  time  comes;  but  they  are  not  inwardly  sure  of 
it.  The  fact  is,  no  one  knows  in  advance  how  he  is 
going  to  behave  in  an  emergency.  But  one  thing 
can  be  said  with  entire  confidence — and  this  should 
be  of  some  service  to  those  who  fancy  that  their 
being  afraid  will  mark  them  out  from  their  com- 
rades— everybody  fears. 

This  is  the  unanimous  testimony  of  men  who  have 
seen  enough  of  war  to  judge  competently,  and  to 

153 


154  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

speak  with  candor.  But  the  biological  nature  of 
fear  would  lead  to  the  same  conclusion. 

For  while  there  are  many  things  which  ordinarily 
arouse  fear,  they  all  have  this  in  common :  they  are 
r>r  represent  conditions  for  which  man  has  no  organs 
of  instinctive  adaptation.  Being  held  under  water, 
or  over  deep  spaces  of  empty  air,  causes  instinctive 
shrinking  to  the  creature  who  has  neither  gills  nor 
wings.  Fire,  loud  noises  (suggesting  changes  too 
rapid  for  our  powers  of  adjustment),  and  for  a  time, 
darkness  and  solitude,  indicate  in  the  same  way  a 
world  unfit  for  our  native  powers. 

Fear,  in  short,  may  be  described  as  the  natural 
reaction  to  a  radically  unfit  environment ;  and  there 
is  no  better  composite  example  of  such  an  environ- 
ment than  the  field  of  battle.  There  are  innate  nerv- 
ous connections  which  tend  to  operate  spontane- 
ously, without  consulting  mil  and  reason,  to 
diminish  the  steadiness  of  muscular  control,  obscure 
the  vision,  alter  the  breathing,  and  dry  the  throat. 
They  can  be  brought  under  control,  but  as  in  most 
other  matters,  after  having  been  experienced,  and 
by  the  aid  of  experience, — not  before. 

In  fact,  it  is  rather  what  a  man  thinks  than  what 
he  physically  experiences  in  battle  that  arouses  fear : 
man's  imagination  has  always  been,  since  the  days 
of  taboo-magic,  spooks,  and  witchcraft,  his  chief 
source  of  apprehension  and  dread.  All  animals  have 
life-preservative  reactions;  but  probably  it  is  only 
man  that  fears  death,  for  it  is  only  man  that  knows — 


FEAK  AND  ITS  CONTROL  155 

or  thinlvs  he  knows — enough  about  death  to  feel  in 
it  the  terror  of  the  unfathomed  and  unkno^vn. 

It  is  within  the  truth  to  say  that  man  is  naturally 
the  most  fear-ful  of  animals,*  partly  on  account  of 
this  reflectiveness  and  forethought,  partly  because 
he  is  more  sensitive  to  pain,  and  largely  because  of 
his  purely  aesthetic  regard  for  his  own  body.  In 
the  instinctive  shrinking  from  the  impact  of  bullet 
or  shell-fragment  it  is  less  the  pain  or  the  finish  that 
one  dreads  than  the  idea  of  mutilation,  of  the  ruth- 
less mixing  and  tearing  of  fine-wrought  tissues,  and 
of  perpetual  bondage  to  the  consciousness  of  a 
broken  frame.  There  is  withal  a  disinterested 
hatred  of  the  shame  and  waste  of  it — the  miserable 
destruction  of  this  fair  and  serviceable  machine,  the 
body.  None  of  these  elements  of  human  fear  would 
trouble  the  brute. 

Fear  is,  therefore,  no  discredit  to  a  man:  on  the 
contrary  it  would  be  rather  less  than  human  to  be 
undisturbed  at  the  beginning  of  one's  experience 
under  fire. 

But  the  beginning  of  the  control  of  fear  comes 
from  the  same  human  faculty  of  self -consciousness ; 
namely,  from  understanding  the  psychological 
nature  of  fear,  and  its  normal  function  in  the  organ- 
ism. For  fear,  as  a  sign  that  instinctive  processes 
of  concealment  or  flight  have  been  aroused,  is  a 
normal  reaction  to  an  abnormal  situation.    It  is  a 

*Du  Picq  says  that  "of  all  animals  man  is  the  most  cowardly." 
The  idea  is  right,  but  the  expression  is  misleading,  for  reasons 
given  below. 


156  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

state  of  transition  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  level  of 
activity,  having  in  common  with  anger  the  secretion 
of  adrenalin  which  throws  the  balance  of  circula- 
tion from  the  viscera  to  the  largo  body  muscles,  in- 
creases the  quantity  of  sugar  in  the  blood — the  most 
available  of  organic  fuels,  and  raises  the  threshold 
of  fatigue,  preparing  the  body  for  the  long  and 
heavy  exertion  of  flight  or  fight,  as  the  case  may  be. 
In  a  small  way,  any  one  who  has  gone  through  the 
experience  of  embarrassment  in  speaking  before  an 
audience  can  recognize  this  function.  Speaking  is  a 
matter  of  vigorous  organic  activity;  and  what  we 
call  embarrassment  indicates  the  transition — per- 
haps from  the  comparative  inaction  and  irrespon- 
sibility of  sitting,  one  among  many,  on  a  platform, 
to  the  state  of  effort  in  which  alone  you  must  "hold" 
your  audience.  As  your  moment  approaches  you 
may  find  your  heart  chugging  uneasily,  your  breath 
impeded,  and  your  mouth  dry :  and  you  may  say  to 
yourself,  **I  am  embarrassed;  this  is  wholly  unrea- 
sonable," a  bit  of  introspection  which — if  it  goes 
no  farther — only  adds  to  your  confusion.  But  if 
your  reflection  goes  a  stage  farther,  and  you  realize 
that  your  body  is  making  dumb  efforts  to  prepare 
for  a  new  level  of  action,  your  self-consciousness 
may  become  a  help :  by  rousing  yourself  to  a  position 
of  alertness  and  taking  a  few  deep  breaths  of  your 
own  accord,  you  can  give  nature  a  lift,  and  make 
the  transition  less  abrupt.  The  same  is  true  to  some 
extent  of  more  serious  types  of  fear:  one  who  real- 


FEAR  AND  ITS  CONTROL  157 

izes  what  nature  is  trying  to  do  for  him  in  its  rather 
bedevilled  attempts  to  supply  him  with  unwonted 
active-capacity  can  to  a  certain  extent  look  on  and 
guide  the  process. 

For  there  is  no  doubt  that  a  fearsome  body  can 
co-exist  with  a  thoroughly  cool  and  determined  head. 
The  old  story  of  General  Turenne  will  bear  repeat- 
ing. Finding  himself  on  one  occasion  unable  to  sup- 
press his  shaking,  he  addressed  his  body  thus: 
*' Tremble,  body:  you  would  tremble  still  more  if 
you  knew  into  what  I  am  going  to  take  you." 
The  same  observant  detachment  of  mind  from  body, 
— just  short  of  the  more  effective  freedom  of  con- 
trol— is  seen  in  a  tale  of  our  own  late  unpleasantness 
in  which  a  subordinate  officer  ventured  to  remark  to 
his  colonel,  ''Colonel,  you  seem  frightened,"  and  re- 
ceived the  retort,  ''So  I  am:  and  if  you  were  half 
as  frightened  as  I  am,  you  would  be  several  miles 
from  this  spot."* 

It  is  well  to  know,  also,  that  fear  is  a  matter  of 
degree  and  is  highly  variable,  sometimes  unaccount- 
ably so.  Fatigue,  drowsiness,  darkness,  and  sur- 
prise, all  increase  liability  to  fear.     Nearly  every 

*I  imagine  that  thia  same  sense  of  detachment  and  semi-external 
control  of  his  body  is  what  suggested  the  idea  of  being  an  "actor" 
to  the  British  officer  who  wrote  these  words  in  a  letter: 

"An  officer  out  here  has  to  be  very  brave  or  a  very  good  actor, — 
I  think  90  per  cent  are  actors.  A  bad  actor  is  sent  home,  and  a  good 
one  is  either  polished  off  or  earns  the  reputation  of  being  a  'fearless 
leader.'  I  think  it  is  an  insult  to  call  a  man  'fearless':  I  would 
rather  be  called  'brainless.'  .  .  .  However  there  are  times  when 
one  can't  help  feeling  that  the  acting  can't  go  on  forever,  and  I 
am  much  more  frightened  of  losing  my  head  than  I  am  of  losing 
my  life.    Discipline  must  be  the  strongest  force  in  the  world." 


158  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

man  is  subject  to  transitory  conditions  of  ** nerves" 
in  which  he  will  behave  as  under  normal  circum- 
stances he  would  not.  The  man  who  when  played 
out  will  jump  at  a  snap  of  the  finger  may  go  over 
the  top  without  a  tremor  when  he  is  fresh.*  It  is 
estimated  that  the  general  average  accuracy  of  fire 
in  an  engagement  is  l/50th  of  the  normal  accuracy. 
General  de  Negrier  has  said  that  five  out  of  a  hun- 
dred keep  cool  enough  to  fire  as  they  would  on  the 
range :  but  it  must  be  said  that  ninety  out  of  a  hun- 
dred are  cool  enough  to  fire  in  the  general  direction 
of  the  enemy. t  And  there  are  few  unable  to  use 
the  bayonet  when  they  have  reached  that  point. 

Because  of  this  variability,  no  one  should  be 
counted  cowardly  on  the  strength  of  his  behavior 
in  any  particular  case.  It  seems  to  me,  indeed,  very 
uncertain  whether  the  noun  "coward"  has  any  valid 
application.  There  are  certainly  cowardly  actions, 
but  I  doubt  whether  there  are  any  cowards.  Fear 
does  not  mean  cowardice,  for  everj^  normal  human 
being  fears ;  and  every  normal  human  being  can  con- 
trol his  fear,  given  sufficient  experience,  sufficient 
opportunity  to  reckon  with  himself,  and  withal  suf- 
ficient interest  in  what  he  is  doing 

The  courage  required  in  the  present  war  is  of  a 

•The  behavior  of  Napoleon's  right  wing  in  the  battle  of  Wagram 
shows  this  variability. 

fin  this  respect,  as  in  others,  the  American  Marines  at  Chateau 
Tliierry  achieved  distinction.  A  participant  writing  of  their  rifle 
fire  says:  "ITiat  men  should  fire  deliberately  use  their  sights,  and 
adjust  their  range  was  beyond  their  experience.  It  must  have  had 
a  telling  eflfect  on  the  morale  of  the  Boche.'' 


FEAR  AND  ITS  CONTROL  159 

more  deliberate  sort  than  that  of  previous  wars, 
less  supported  by  dash  and  the  admiring  eyes  of 
comrades.  ** Trench  courage,"  as  LeBon  says,  **is 
unaccompanied  by  fame :  it  consists  almost  entirely 
in  keeping  cool  and  in  giving  brain  and  will  free 
play."  The  picture  of  courage  is  for  the  most  part 
simply  the  picture  of  steadiness,  the  mental  poise 
which  comes  from  learning  what  can  and  what  can- 
not be  done  in  given  situations,  of  ceasing  to  try  to 
calculate  what  is  incalculable,  or  to  dodge  the  dan- 
ger that  is  past ;  and  from  reducing  as  much  as  pos- 
sible to  the  level  of  habit. 

Much  depends  on  this  matter  of  habit;  for  no  mind 
can  keep  its  balance  unless  there  is  a  goodly  propor- 
tion of  what  it  can  count  on  in  the  midst  of  what  is 
new  and  unanticipated  from  moment  to  moment. 
The  whole  business  of  training,  so  far  as  it  bears 
on  fear,  consists  in  increasing  the  proportion  of  the 
known  to  the  unknown  in  every  situation  of  combat. 
Beside  this,  men  in  the  trenches  become  keen  ob- 
servers of  the  habits  of  the  enemy,  know  his  mess 
hours,  his  methods  of  shelling,  and  his  hours  for 
strafing  different  spots :  in  all  this  our  boys  are  much 
aided  by  the  methodical  disposition  of  Fritzy,  or 
were  so  aided  in  earlier  days.  During  my  visit  to 
the  front,  I  heard  that  the  Germans  had  begun  to 
learn  that  their  regularity  was  to  our  advantage, 
and  had  begun  methodically  to  vary  their  methods. 
At  the  best  the  amount  of  uncertainty  and  shifting 
in  warfare  is  greatly  in  excess  of  the  amount  of 


160  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

possible  habit;  the  mind  has  to  live  much  in  what 
may  be  called  the  secondary  habits — the  habits  of 
making  changes  and  adjustments  of  given  kinds, 
as  from  firing  line  to  billets,  from  holding  to  attack, 
from  extreme  idleness  to  extreme  action.  Almost 
we  might  say,  warfare  of  to-day  requires  the  habit 
of  passing  from  extreme  to  extreme.  But  in  any 
case,  a  basis  of  habit  is  created,  and  with  it  the  pos- 
sibility of  mentally  classing  the  dangers,  taking  their 
measure,  and  so  reducing  the  scope  of  fear. 

"Familiarity  with  the  same  dangers  eventually 
leaves  the  human  animal  unmoved.  One's  nerves  no 
longer  quiver;  the  conscious  and  constant  effort  to 
keep  control  over  one's  self  is  successful  in  the  end. 
Therein  lies  the  secret  of  all  military  courage.  Men 
are  not  born  brave;  they  become  brave.  The  in- 
stinct to  be  conquered  is  more  or  less  resistant,  that 
is  all. 

'*  Moreover,  one  must  live  on  the  field  of  battle, 
just  as  elsewhere:  it  is  necessary  to  become  accus- 
tomed to  this  new  existence  no  matter  how  perilous 
or  harsh  it  may  be.  And  what  renders  it  difficult, 
more  intolerable,  is  fear,  the  fear  that  throttles  and 
paralyzes.  It  has  to  be  conquered,  and  finally  one 
does  conquer  it."* 

Instinctively,  in  this  way,  the  mind  builds  up  its 
own  first  line  of  defense  against  panic.  But  beside 
this,  there  are  various  ways  of  dealing  with  the  un- 
welcome emotion  as  it  begins  to  make  itself  felt, 
such  as  every  man  learns  for  himself.  It  may  not 
be  out  of  place  to  suggest  certain  of  the  more  natu- 
ral ways  in  which  an  antidote  to  fear  can  be  found. 

•Paul  Lintier  in  "My  75." 


FEAB  AND  ITS  CONTROL  161 

THE  CONTEOL  OF  FEAB 

Fear  seldom  outlasts  the  first  plunge  into  combat ; 
it  has  its  chance  to  grow  during  the  tense  time  of 
waiting  for  the  moment  of  attack.  Action  is  the 
suflBcient  antidote  for  fear  in  most  cases;  but  for 
the  moments  in  which  there  is  still  a  chance  to  direct 
one's  thoughts,  the  following  natural  aids  to  con- 
trol may  be  mentioned: 

1.  Turning  the  mind  deliberately  to  some- 
thing in  the  region  of  habit, — i.  e.,  to  something  in 
which  your  control  is  certain  and  easy.  The  self- 
suggestion  of  mastery  of  the  situation  flows  outward 
from  any  such  center.  A  triviality  of  routine  is 
evidently  better  for  this  purpose  than  a  thought- 
demanding  enterprise.  Hence  the  instinctive  resort 
to  cigarette  or  pipe;  the  mechanical  review  of  the 
equipment,  etc. 

2.  Turning  the  mind  to  the  troubles  of  the  other 
man.  Fear  is  an  attack  of  acute  self-consciousness, 
and  is  accordingly  incompatible  with  self-forgetful- 
ness.  Here  the  habit  of  unselfishness  is  a  great 
stand-by.  It  is  a  general  psychological  law  that  self- 
ishness predisposes  to  fear;  and  we  may  add  that 
all  forms  of  sensuality  predispose  to  selfishness. 

3.  Turning  the  mind  to  what  you  are  going  to  do 
to  the  enemy,  rather  than  to  what  he  is  going  to  do 
to  you.  The  most  complete  antidote  for  fear  is  pug- 
nacity. Nature  has  made  the  organic  base  of  the 
two  emotions  the  same:  both  fighting  and  running 


162  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

away  require  large  stocks  of  available  energy  for 
intense  and  prolonged  exertion.  In  the  animal 
world,  the  question  whether  to  fight  or  run  is  some- 
times a  close  one;  and  there  is  an  obvious  advan- 
tage in  having  the  two  instinctive  mechanisms 
mounted,  so  to  speak,  on  the  same  groundwork.  A 
recollection  of  the  sources  of  indignation  that  are 
most  vital  to  the  individual  soldier  may  make  just 
the  difference  between  an  inward-turned  and  an 
outward-turned  set  of  mind,  and  between  hesitation 
and  resolve.  General  Grant,  in  the  well-known  pas- 
sage of  his  Memoirs,  tells  how  he  was  afraid  of  the 
enemy  until  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  enemy  was 
just  as  much  afraid  of  him. 

4.  Recollection  of  first  principles.  The  relative 
importance  of  things  is  distorted  by  fear,  as  by  other 
emotions:  the  possibilities  of  the  present  crisis  in 
bringing  pain  or  disfigurement  or  death  loom  bigger 
than  the  things  one  is  fighting  for — which  have  a 
way  of  retreating  into  the  shadow.  This  is  the  time 
for  the  philosophy  of  a  man's  quieter  hours;  a  time 
for  recalling  that  self  of  reference  we  were  speak- 
ing of,  and  the  symbols  of  the  drill-ground  v/ith  all 
that  has  been  put  into  them  of  meaning.  Plato's 
definition  of  courage  has  not  lost  its  point :  he  said 
that  courage  was  a  holding  to  one's  knowledge  of 
what  is  better  and  what  is  worse, — i.  e.,  when  cir- 
cumstances favor  forgetting.  Sentiment  distin- 
guishes itself  from  belief  in  the  moment  of  trial; 
and  the  mind  of  the  man  that  is  furnished  with  the 


FEAR  AND  ITS  CONTROL  163 

belief  in  the  proportions  of  tliir  ^s  set  forth  in  these 
quiet  words  of  Captain  Norman  Leslie  of  the  Irish 
Rifle  Brigade  will  hold  its  level: 

"Try  not  to  worry  too  much  about  the  war,"  he 
wrote  in  a  letter  shortly  before  his  death  in  action. 
**  Units  and  individuals  cannot  count.  Remember 
we  are  writing  a  new  page  of  history.  Future  gen- 
erations cannot  be  allowed  to  read  of  the  decline  of 
the  British  Empire,  and  attribute  it  to  us.  We  live 
our  little  lives  and  die.  To  some  are  given  chances 
of  proving  themselves  men,  and  to  others  no  chance 
comes." 

What  is  it  to  '* prove  one's  self  a  man"?  I  think 
it  means,  to  prove  one's  power  to  see  the  greatness 
of  the  great  purposes  of  history,  as  only  a  man  can 
see  them;  and  to  count  oneself  ennobled  by  giving 
himself  to  them. 

Fear  is,  of  course,  a  sign  of  incomplete  dedica- 
tion. It  is  due  to  the  lingering  physical  hope  still 
to  save  something  of  what  in  principle  one  has  given 
away.  Of  the  "Spirit  of  the  French  Troops" 
Lieut.  Col.  Paul  Azan  says,  "The  certainty  of  being 
hit  one  day  or  another  is  in  the  mind  of  each;  far 
from  quenching  enthusiasm  this  stimulates  it." 
This  spirit  is  surely  the  desideratum,  whether  or  not 
it  is  within  reach  of  the  average  human  frame:  to 
have  made  up  one's  mind  to  the  final  sacrifice,  and 
then  to  fill  what  time  one  has  with  the  maximum  of 
effect. 


164  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

SUGGESTIONS  FOR  OFFICERS  ON  THE  CONTROL  OF  FEAR  IN 
THEIR  MEN 

1.  ^Yhi\e  it  is  for  the  soldier  to  lean  against  his 
own  self-concern,  it  is  for  the  officer  to  take  the 
other  direction,  and  meet  more  than  half  way  the 
natural  element  of  self-interest  that  is  in  all  fear. 
Every  man  has  a  reasonable  interest  in  not  being 
forgotten,  or  being  simply  a  bit  of  waste  in  the 
great  scrap  heap  of  war:*  anything  that  reminds 
him  that  he  counts,  and  will  not  be  lost  sight  of,  will 
reach  the  right  spot.  A  sign  of  personal  interest 
will  mean  much;  such  a  formality  as  calling  the 
roll  will  likewise  mean  much  in  another  way,  for  it  is 
a  sign  of  the  presence  there  of  the  State  itself,  tak- 
ing strict  account  of  its  individual  members. 

A  French  officer  writes  as  follows  of  the  morning 
of  the  great  and  costly  offensive  of  April  16,  1917 : 

"I  remember  when  my  battalion  was  preparing  to 
jump  over  the  parapet.  I  went  through  the  trenches 
to  see  if  everybody  was  ready.  I  shook  hands  with 
many  of  the  soldiers;  their  officers  were  among 
them.  I  felt  everywhere  a  wave  of  brotherhood,  a 
feeling  of  duty,  of  grim  determination.  .  Part  of 
the  officers  were  killed  during  the  battle.  One  of 
them  was  a  young  priest,  a  company  commander 
named  Marck.  When  we  were  relieved  on  April 
20,  those  men  went  across  to  his  grave.  Nobody 
could  stop  them.    They  disinterred  the  corpse  and 

•These  words  of  a  wounded  British  soldier  at  Southampton  show 
the  persistent  feeling  that  waste  is  the  only  intolerable  thing: 

"It's  well  thought  out,  and  I  think  you'll  find  that  all  our  casual- 
ties whatever  they  may  be  will  be  well  paid  for, — nothing  wasted 
or  chucked  away.  .  .  .  Myself? — You  can't  make  such  big  omelettes 
as  this  without  cracking  a  good  many  eggs,  you  know!" 


FEAR  AND  ITS  CONTROL  165 

carried  it  with  them  wrapped  in  canvas,  though  we 
had  a  very  hard  march  of  ten  miles  in  the  mud  dur- 
ing the  night,  pitch  dark,  and  under  continual  bom- 
bardment. Those  men  wanted  to  give  to  the  chief 
they  loved  a  solemn  funeral."  Thus  the  individual 
quality  asserts  itself  and  seeks  its  rights  in  the  midst 
of  the  vast  impersonality  of  war. 

2.  Aid  the  outward-turning  of  their  minds,  by 
giving  them  something  to  do  while  waiting.  Call 
their  attention  to  the  small  concrete  duties  that  have 
become  semi-automatic,  the  order  of  their  equip- 
ment, etc.,  thus  reminding  them  of  their  ''self  of 
reference."  If  circumstances  permit  their  being 
allowed  to  fire,  whether  or  not  the  firing  will  do  much 
good,  so  much  the  better:  whatever  suggests  doing 
things  to  the  enemy  will  aid  the  turning  of  bodily 
preparations  down  the  pugnacity-channel  rather 
than  the  fear-channel.  Fear  can  better  be  met  by 
substitution  of  alternative  interests  than  by  di- 
rectly rebuking  it  and  so  recognizing  and  consoli- 
dating it,  producing  a  division  within  the  mind. 
It  is  here  that  ''suggestion"  has  its  place:  ideas  of 
action  and  of  success  can  be  suggested,  ideas  of  the 
game  side  of  the  operation,  rivalry  with  other  units, 
etc. 

3.  But  fear  will  never  be  met  by  minimizing  the 
occasion :  this  only  drives  it  to  deeper,  more  private 
and  dangerous  recesses.  What  men  have  the  great- 
est right  to,  under  the  circumstances  of  battle,  is 
the  fullest  knowledge  of  their  general  situation  that 
can  be  given  them.     Their  objectives  they  already 


166  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

know,  probably  in  minute  detail,  together  with  the 
exact  routes  of  reaching  them.  But  they  also  are 
concerned  to  have  full  knowledge  of  what  is  against 
them,  of  what  suport  and  reserve  is  behind  them, 
— and  if  possible  of  the  strength  and  disposition  of 
the  artillery. 

It  is  not  incompatible  with  the  suggestion  of  suc- 
cess to  prepare  the  men  with  the  greatest  candor  for 
all  contingencies,  forestalling  in  this  way  the  pos- 
sibility of  surprise,  the  greatest  breeder  of  panic. 
An  officer  who  has  once  concealed  the  worst  facts 
of  the  situation  from  his  command,  can  hardly  hope 
for  their  full  confidence, — an  indispensable  element 
in  any  power  he  may  have  over  their  fears. 

4.  Be  alert  for  the  beginnings  of  agitation,  hurry 
or  confusion;  slow  the  men  dowTi,  suspend  firing, 
or  otherwise  give  them  a  chance  to  recover  control. 
If  you  have  to  deal  with  an  infectious  bit  of  fear, 
avoid  violent  methods  except  as  a  last  resort.  Do 
not,  however,  use  threat  or  bluster  as  a  substitute 
for  action ;  mean  everything  you  say.  Only  remem- 
ber that  extremes,  before  extremes  are  necessary, 
are  a  confession  of  your  OA\ai  alarm,  and  make  the 
case  worse.  Caesar's  way  of  rallying  a  broken  col- 
umn may  still  have  an  application.  Finding  the 
standard  bearer,  he  said,  "Friend,  you  are  mis- 
taken: it  is  in  tJiis  direction  you  mean  to  run." 

5.  Many  men  fear  through  a  false  conception  of 
the  nature  of  heroism.  They  are  likely  to  think  that 
it  consists  in  an  imprudent  and  irregular  **  contempt 


FEAR  AND  ITS  CONTROL  167 

of  danger ' ' ;  and  this  feeling  is  enhanced  by  the  gen- 
eral approval  of  occasional  brilliant  and  foolhardy 
escapades.  There  is  a  real  dilemma  here  for  the 
officer;  and  I  see  no  complete  solution  of  it, — for 
what  the  dare-devils  do  is  often  immensely  worth 
doing.  But  the  men  must  learn  that  steady  team- 
work and  strict  adherence  to  orders  are  the  basis  of 
the  courage  that  counts ;  and  that  a  dead  soldier  is 
seldom  of  further  use  to  the  present  emergency. 

The  same  applies,  of  course,  to  the  officer's  own 
action.  The  most  powerful  means,  to-day  as  always, 
of  steadying  a  wavering  line  at  a  critical  moment 
is  the  instant  readiness  of  officers  to  act  in  ''con- 
tempt of  danger";  but  the  example  of  self-exposure 
will  be  powerful  just  in  proportion  as  it  has  been 
kept  in  reserve,  and  so  bears  the  meaning  of  a 
deliberate  rather  than  an  impulsive  or  flurried  act. 
Even  in  the  heat  of  battle,  that  command  of  the 
head  which  can  instantly  bend  every  means  accu- 
rately to  the  end,  and  in  the  most  lavish  spending 
still  conserve, — that  presence  of  the  mind,  is  the  one 
supreme  source  of  stability  and  control, 


CHAPTER  XV 

WAB  AND  WOMEN 

The  seasoned  soldier  is  apt  to  regard  with  some  im- 
patience the  various  signs  of  public  concern  about 
the  morals  of  men  in  service.  The  main  reason  for 
this  impatience  we  can  readily  understand.  It  is 
not  a  simple  case  of  the  annoyance  which  any  ex- 
ternal solicitude  for  the  personal  consciences  of 
mature  men  is  bound  to  excite.  It  is  a  feeling  that 
such  solicitude  at  such  a  moment  is  out  of  order  and 
out  of  perspective.  When  everything  depends  upon 
speed,  concentration,  and  the  good-will  on  all  hands 
to  suppress  distracting  side-issues,  the  questionings 
of  the  personal  moralist  might  well  seem  strangely 
ill-timed. 

There  are  other  reasons  less  elementary  and  less 
general.  There  are  many  who  feel  that  in  war  all 
values  are  somewhat  altered ;  that  the  moral  balance 
of  the  men  is  bound  to  undergo  a  temporary  change 
for  the  work  in  hand;  that  we  must  be  prepared  to 
accept  a  certain  amount  of  crudity  and  error  as  a 
part  of  the  cost  of  war  in  exactly  the  same  spirit  as 
that  in  which  Lincoln  accepted  the  rampant  profit- 
eering of  his  day  as  a  part  of  the  cost  of  the  Civil 
War.  And  there  are  some  who  believe  that  our 
nominal  standards  of  social  conduct  are  over-refined 

168 


WAB  AND  WOMEN  169 

if  not  actually  dishonest;  that  soldiering  promises 
to  bring  a  franker  and  freer  and  sounder  temper 
into  our  bourgeois  existence;  that  the  burden  of 
proof,  at  any  rate,  rests  rather  upon  the  civilian 
than  upon  the  military  ideal,  wherever  they  prove 
to  differ. 

But  among  the  many  things  which  make  this  war 
unusual,  one  of  the  most  conspicious  is  the  fact  that, 
while  men  have  never  been  put  to  such  intense  and 
long-continued  strain,  there  has  never  been  such 
organized  and  minute  study  of  the  soldier's  needs. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  great  and  critical  game  of 
eflficiency  that  every  leak  should  be  examined  and 
understood.  There  is  no  disposition  to  accept  as  a 
necessary  evil  anything  that  has  a  bearing  on  the 
health  or  morale  of  the  men.  And  while  morality, 
in  the  narrower  sense,  is  far  from  identical  with 
morale,  it  distinctly  bears  on  it — as,  for  example, 
in  the  connection  between  sensuality  and  fear  of 
which  we  were  speaking.  The  old-fashioned  army 
officer  who  played  the  double  role  of  regarding  the 
morals  of  his  men  as  their  own  private  affair,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  seeing  to  it  that  in  view  of 
human  nature  a  degree  of  opportunity  for  self- 
indulgence  was  not  lacking,  has  all  but  disappeared. 
Our  army  commands  are  becoming  studiously  pater- 
nal in  order  that  no  element  of  success  shall  be 
overlooked. 

To  my  mind  there  is  no  need  for  the  services 
either  of  the  censor  or  of  the  professional  white- 


170  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

washer  in  this  matter  of  the  soldier's  morality.  In 
this  day  of  general  willingness  to  face  facts,  and 
ability  to  judge  them  sanely,  these  services  are  more 
likely  to  do  harm  than  good.  The  cure  for  the  critic 
is  not  suppression;  and  the  cure  for  any  incidental 
evil  of  army  life  is  not  criticism.  In  each  case  the 
need  is  for  accurate  knowledge  and  a  wider  psy- 
chological understanding. 

Two  facts  inseparable  from  war  tend  to  make  the 
soldier  in  general  and  the  woman  in  general  un- 
usually interesting  to  each  other.  One  is  that  the 
soldier  regards  himself,  and  is  regarded,  as  engaged 
in  protecting  women  and  what  women  stand  for. 
Women  become  the  symbols  for  the  whole  of  that 
amenity  of  life  built  up  and  cherished  by  the  finer 
sensitivities  of  the  race;  the  soldier  becomes  the 
symbol  of  its  defense.  The  other  is  that  in  the 
actual  business  of  war  men  are  segregated  and 
women  are  segregated.  The  communities  at  the 
front,  and  to  a  lesser  degree  the  communities  at 
home,  are  communities  of  one  sex.  If  it  were  only 
a  matter  of  the  habitual  balance  of  mental  existence, 
this  fact  might  be  expected  to  develop  in  each  sex  a 
heightened  wish  for  the  companionship  of  the  other. 

Further,  the  innumerable  subtle  filaments  that  in 
ordinary  conditions  carry  away  the  direct  conscious- 
ness of  manhood  and  womanhood  are  swept  away. 
In  the  daily  routine  of  peace,  men  and  women 
acquire  the  habit  of  forgetting  that  they  are  men 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  171 

and  women.  They  are  able  to  deal  with  one  another, 
not  quite  impersonally,  but  unsexually — as  buyers 
and  sellers,  as  employers  and  employed,  as  providers 
of  services,  as  thinkers,  choosers,  connoisseurs,  hu- 
man beings.  Or  rather,  they  are  able  to  keep  the 
continuous  current  of  sex-interest  in  the  position 
of  an  inactive  spectator,  making  its  own  remarks, 
stimulating  or  retarding  the  flow  of  intercourse,  but 
wholly  out  of  circuit  for  the  main  business  in  hand. 
This  is  a  late  and  difficult  achievement  of  civiliza- 
tion, an  achievement  in  equilibrium,  a  bit  of  ground 
won  from  a  masterful  instinctive  prepossession, 
won  precariously  and  unequally  by  different  races 
and  members  of  races,  but  an  achievement  upon 
which  obviously  the  freedom  and  scope  of  civilized 
life  directly  depend.  Hard  work,  the  pursuit  of 
science,  concern  for  justice,  and  in  fact  for  every 
end  we  call  ''objective,"  naturally  inhibit  the  sexual 
motive,  and  can  thrive  only  as  it  is  inhibited  or 
sublimated.  This  equilibrium  war  everywhere  de- 
stroys. 

Turn  from  general  forces  to  the  individual  human 
being  caught  in  the  flood  of  war.  Accustomed  to 
live  in  the  future,  sometimes  far  in  the  future,  the 
plan-making  animal  finds  his  plans  cut  across  by 
war  as  peremptorily  as  by  death;  no  longer  master 
of  to-morrow,  the  spirit  of  chance  and  adventure 
enters  as  foresight  disappears.  But  the  adventure 
in  any  case  is  great  and  radical;  in  place  of  those 
small  groups  of  specialized  men  with  whom  one  car- 


172  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ried  on  one's  thoughtful  dealings,  one  is  now  sensi- 
bly taking  part  in  something  vast,  something  total. 
One  may  hate  war  without  limit ;  in  every  man  there 
is  still  a  love  of  the  sweeping  catastrophic  event  just 
because  it  is  immense — as  one  may  gaze  at  a  great 
fire,  not  without  horror  and  yet  not  without  de- 
lighted wonder.  In  this  new  and  great  world  old 
habits  fail  to  fit;  at  the  roots  of  the  tree  of  char- 
acter there  works,  in  spite  of  all,  an  unsettling 
spirit. 

The  intoxication  of  war  might  well  be  held  in 
check  by  the  tragic  meaning  of  the  event  if  men 
went  to  war  singly.  But  the  strange  comradeship 
of  camp  and  barracks  fans  the  common  and  simpler 
elements  of  excitement,  and  sends  into  swift  retire- 
ment the  sober  and  reflective  self  of  civil  life.  Where 
so  many  habits  must  be  broken,  it  is  small  wonder  if 
the  feeling  prevails  that  all  rules  are  off — all  the 
old  rules.  The  life  of  the  soldier  has  its  own  rules 
and  ideals;  but  the  tamer  virtues  stand  in  a  paler 
light :  they  are  not  means  to  the  great  ends  of  war. 
They  lose  in  the  perspective  of  psychological  impor- 
tance. 

If  in  such  radical  readjustment  the  ties  of  conven- 
tion are  loosened,  this  is  not  an  unmixed  calamity. 
Unless  we  are  prepared  to  say  that  our  conventions 
are  all  good,  such  a  liquidation  of  mental  fixities 
should  bring  with  it  many  salutary  liberations. 
Whatever  makes  the  world  consciously  kin,  breaks 
down  reserve,  caste,  and  crust,  and  favors  the  direct 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  173 

approach  and  prompt  response  of  one  mind  to  an- 
other, leaves  humanity  its  debtor.  The  spirit  of 
war  is  experimental,  pragmatic,  accustomed  to  large 
changes,  discounting  all  ordinary  impossibilities. 
The  tether  of  imagination  is  loosened ;  and  men  be- 
come fearless — irreverent  perhaps,  but  at  least 
fearless — in  dealing  with  the  issues  of  life  and 
death,  and  hence  mth  all  minor  issues.  If  anything 
in  the  world  is  merely  conventional  it  will  fare  badly 
before  this  temper;  and  all  conventions,  however 
well-founded,  may  expect  a  challenge.  "What  of  the 
conventions  that  surround  the  family;  will  they  be 
h^ld  immune? 

Though  I  put  the  question  as  one  of  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  soldier,  it  becomes  part  of  his  problem 
that  women  are  not  unaffected  by  the  same  unrest. 
If  the  men  are  more  released  and  venturesome,  the 
women  are  more  at  a  loss  without  their  usual 
helpers.  Their  fireside  is  no  longer  the  place  of 
safety  and  reassurance.  In  the  small  towns  of 
Europe  one  sees  the  simple  expression  of  this 
change.  Moved  by  a  mixture  of  enthusiasm,  grati- 
tude, bewilderment,  and  fear,  the  women  are  draAvn 
out  into  the  companionship  of  the  market  and  the 
street,  where  the  news,  the  passing  excitements,  the 
spirit  of  the  tribe,  the  physical  presence  of  the 
bearers  of  power,  provide  the  needed  mental  sus- 
tainment.  It  is  as  if  in  times  of  war  the  god  of  com- 
mon life  had  withdrawn  from  the  family  hearth  and 
had  taken  up  his  residence  in  the  places  of  public 


174  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

concourse.  The  general  interest  grows  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  particular;  and  as  in  ancient  days,  a 
certain  promiscuity  of  feeling,  a  community  of 
goods  and  destinies,  breaks  down  ordinary  barriers. 
Some  of  the  same  psychological  forces  that  make 
patriotism  and  religion  prominent,  and  result  in  the 
merging  of  interests  and  services  in  the  tide  of  com- 
mon devotion,  threaten  for  the  moment  the  finer 
sense  of  propriety  and  distinction  in  the  minds  of 
the  keepers  of  distinction,  the  women. 

One  who  cannot  understand  and  sympathize  with 
these  general  tendencies  is  so  far  untouched  by  the 
psychological  mood  of  war.  And  given  these  tend- 
encies, we  have  to  expect  as  a  matter  of  statistics 
that  there  will  be  laxity  in  relations  of  sex.  When 
the  stream  rises,  it  picks  up  at  first  the  floatable  and 
unanchored  objects  along  its  banks ;  and  we  get  an 
impression  of  disorder  and  dissolution.  Rumor 
seizes  on  local  troubles  and  paints  them  as  universal. 
What  we  need  is  some  way  of  gauging  the  meaning 
and  extent  of  the  situation;  w^e  nieed  a  judgment  of 
proportion. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  no  ''general  tendency" 
has  all  its  owti  way  with  men.  One  of  the  most 
extraordinary  qualities  of  human  nature  is  its 
power  to  recognize  when  it  is  being  affected  by  a 
general  tendency,  and  to  institute  counteractive 
measures.  At  the  theater  one  perceives  the  on- 
coming  of   the   emotional   onslaught   and   fortifies 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  1*^ 

himself;  so  with  the  excitement  at  a  great  game,  or 
with  the  beginnings  of  fear  in  an  emergency.  In 
the  same  way,  every  soldier  knows  more  or  less 
clearly  that  he  is  subject  to  the  illusions  of  the  un- 
usual, and  is  to  this  extent  on  his  guard.  Despite 
all  superficial  disturbances,  a  man's  conscience  is 
the  most  persistent  and  unyielding  of  his  mental 
ingredients;  and  every  man  remains  the  keeper  of 
his  own  conscience.  When  the  first  chaotic  period 
of  readjustment  has  ended  in  the  making  of  new 
habits  and  a  recovery  of  some  mental  steadiness, 
he  finds  that  what  he  has  cared  for  continues  to 
exist,  even  if  his  direct  active  connection  with  it  is 
broken.  Its  laws,  so  far  as  they  are  valid,  still  bind 
him,  and  perhaps  the  more  firmly  because  what  he 
has  cared  for  is  out  of  his  present  reach.  The  sol- 
dier who  can  keep  alive  his  communication  with  his 
o^vn  family  has  a  powerful  stabilizer  in  the  unsettle- 
ments  of  war. 

What  we  should  naturally  expect,  even  if  nothing 
were  done  about  it,  would  be  first  of  all  a  segrega- 
tion of  the  lightly  anchored  from  the  firmly  anchored 
members  of  society;  and  then  a  steady  clearing  of 
the  stream,  as  both  the  individual  soldier  and  the 
army  as  a  whole  begin  to  get  their  bearings  and  to 
learn  from  experience.  Errors  at  first  are  not  to  be 
taken  as  a  measure  of  what  is  to  follow.  Self- 
respect  is  too  vital  an  asset  whether  in  war  or  in 
peace  not  to  become  in  time,  and  by  its  own  obvious 
worth,  the  rule  of  the  great  majority. 


176  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

Naturally,  the  boys  who  are  over-seas  are  more 
likely  to  feel  themselves  in  a  world  apart,  where 
moral  causality  seems  to  pursue  them  less  relent- 
lessly. In  their  case,  much  depends  on  the  tradition 
of  their  own  particular  unit.  Men  have  a  startling 
tendency  to  yield  their  opinions  to  what  they  believe 
(whether  rightly  or  not)  most  of  the  rest  of  their 
group  are  doing.  They  have  an  equally  prompt  and 
surprising  tendency  to  control  themselves,  even  to 
the  point  of  asceticism,  if  they  believe  that  control 
is  the  order  of  the  day  with  their  comrades,  a7id 
particularly  with  their  officers. 

There  is  in  London  an  office  where  soldiers  belong- 
ing to  one  of  the  expeditionary  forces  are  required 
to  register  when  they  are  in  the  city  on  leave,  and 
where  surgeons  in  charge  explain  to  them  and  warn 
them  against  the  conditions  they  will  meet  in  the 
London  streets.  Between  March  1  and  July  1,  1917, 
34,374  members  of  this  expeditionary  force  regis- 
tered here ;  and  of  these  a  certain  number  took  from 
the  office  the  prophylactic  there  supplied  which 
would  measurably  guard  them  against  venereal  in- 
fection. This  number  was  given  to  me  by  the  officer 
in  charge  as  30,000.  From  the  medical  point  of  view 
the  work  of  this  office  is  a  great  success ;  for  among 
these  men  the  percentage  of  infection  is  only  about 
two  per  cent  as  compared  with  over  four  per  cent 
in  the  British  army.*     But  the  officers  in  charge 

*The  rate  in  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  ia  reported,  Au- 
gust, 1918,  aa  less  than  one  per  cent. 


WAE  AND  WOMEN  177 

realized  that  they  had  no  prophylactic  against  moral 
infection,  if  this  is  the  right  name  for  it.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  London  streets  and  the  tradition  of 
the  units  concerned,  they  had  at  the  time  no  way  of 
contending  against. 

The  German  army  was  in  pre-war  times  more  suc- 
cessful than  either  the  French  army  or  the  British 
army  in  reducing  its  percentage  of  veneral  disease 
through  scientific  prophylaxis.  Recruits  entering 
the  British  army  during  the  years  1900-1908  showed 
5  cases  of  venereal  disease  per  thousand,  as  against 
7.5  cases  per  thousand  among  the  German  recruits. 
As  members  of  the  British  army,  these  same  men 
showed  66  cases  per  thousand,  as  against  19.4  cases 
per  thousand  in  the  German  army.  It  is  said  that 
since  1914,  the  British  rate  has  been  reduced  to  48.3 
per  thousand ;  the  German  rate  is  unknown  to  me. 

Nothing  could  show  more  vividly  than  these  figures 
the  contrast  between  physical  and  moral  prophy- 
laxis. Hygienically  successful  as  the  German  meth- 
ods of  dealing  with  this  problem  are,  it  is  a  fair  ques- 
tion whether  there  is  not  a  direct  causal  connection 
between  those  methods  and  the  coarsening  of  fiber 
implied  in  the  incomparable  animality  of  the  Ger- 
man armies  in  the  &e\d.  The  systematic  official  ad- 
ministering of  prophylaxis  in  our  navies  and  armies 
is  a  necessity.  Any  such  administration  acknowl- 
edges to  the  men  the  customariness  of  the  breach  of 
custom  involved;  the  psychological  step  from  this 
to  an  appearance  of  official  sanction  is  a  short  one. 


178  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  we  have  no  desire  to  move 
in  the  direction  of  the  German  temper  in  this  mat- 
ter, while  using  or  copying  German  remedies.  It  is 
a  pertinent  question,  then,  whether  the  act  of  deal- 
ing in  physical  immunity  does  not  create  an  obliga- 
tion to  go  a  step  farther  in  a  positive  effort  to  coun- 
teract the  impression  of  sanction. 

We  have  no  right  to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  city  of  London,  or  the  city  of  Paris,  or  any  other 
city  could  control  the  situation  entirely.  For  the 
above-mentioned  oflficer  has  found  by  careful  in- 
quiry that  of  the  women  involved  the  number  of 
professional  prostitutes  is  smaller  than  the  num- 
ber of  "amateurs,"  that  is  to  say,  of  girls  who 
accept  no  money.  The  control  must  come  through 
such  measures  as  our  own  army  in  France  has 
already  wisely  instituted,  keeping  the  boys  as  far 
as  possible  out  of  the  large  cities  until  they  have 
got  their  balance ;  and  so  starting  their  life  abroad 
with  a  tradition  of  the  reverse  order;  and,  further, 
through  a  careful  study  of  the  special  needs  of  the 
soldier  on  leave. 

The  data  already  mentioned  were  of  men  on  leave, 
after  a  time  of  severe  fighting,  not  of  men  going  to 
the  front  for  the  first  time.  The  man  who  has  just 
come  from  the  trenches  is  in  a  state  of  mind  which, 
if  not  precisely  abnormal,  has  problems  of  its  own 
The  same  inhuman  strain,  which  makes  **  permis- 
sion" necessarily  more  frequent  in  this  war  than  in 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  179 

preceding  wars,  makes  the  release  a  time  of  peculiar 
difficulty.  As  it  was  put  to  me  by  an  American  boy 
in  the  Canadian  army  who  was  enjoying  ten  days' 
leave  in  Paris:  "When  a  man  comes  out  of  the 
trenches,  he  doesn't  care  what  he  does — he  doesn't 
care."  All  our  civil  scruples  and  weighings  and 
baitings  look  small  to  him.  This  is  his  moment  of 
freedom;  and  perhaps  his  one  chance  to  take  what 
joy  there  is  in  existence.  He  is  going  back  again; 
he  has  signed  away  his  claim  on  life.  He  feels  that 
he  has  acquired  special  rights — and  here  are  the 
opportunities.  And  beside  this,  he  has  been  starv- 
ing, probably  not  in  body,  but  in  spirit ;  he  has  been 
living  in  barrenness,  and  he  has  been  starving  for 
the  tender  and  kindly  side  of  life.  He  has  a  need 
for  the  society  of  women. 

It  is  worse  than  useless  to  go  at  this  problem  as  a 
problem  of  repression.  So  long  as  the  soldier  is  a 
drilling  and  preparing  soldier,  repression  is  in 
place.  If  he  fails  to  practise  restraint,  it  is  chiefly 
his  captain  or  his  major  or  his  colonel  who  is  re- 
sponsible. There  is  no  excuse  for  looseness  about 
drill-camps;  our  experience  on  the  Mexican  border 
has  opened  our  eyes  on  this  point.  At  the  great 
camp  at  Aldershot,  I  saw  a  group  of  men  training  in 
gymnastics.  Their  spirit  was  as  amazing  as  their 
form ;  they  had  a  passion  for  perfection ;  ninety  out 
of  a  hundred  of  them  gave  voluntary  extra  hours 
after  a  heavy  day's  work.  Dissipation  to  these 
men  was  an  impossibility ;  and  for  them  the  problem 


180  MORALE  A^-D  ITB  ENEMIES 

did  not  exist.  But  the  soldier  on  leave  is  without 
any  such  immediate  ambition  for  being  in  condition ; 
and  he  has,  I  repeat,  a  definite  need  for  the  society 
of  women. 

But  the  soldier  on  leave  is  not  much  in  a  mood  for 
the  apparatus  of  introductions  and  other  proprieties 
which  hedge  our  women  about.  What  he  wants  is 
a  freer  kind  of  association,  a  gayer  and  readier 
choice,  an  easier  come  and  go.  To  put  it  baldly,  to 
meet  his  needs,  women  must  be  accessible  and  rela- 
tively anonymous,  as  well  as  agreeable  in  the  sense 
of  meeting  his  particular  fancy  and  being  ready 
for  a  good  time.  The  soldier  on  leave  would  prefer 
not  to  be  burdened  with  the  fact  that  ]\Iiss  X  is  the 
daughter  of  So-and-so,  living  in  the  city  of  Boston, 
Mass.,  and  related  to  the  B's  and  C's.  He  wishes 
to  take  her  as  a  companion,  without  other  history 
than  naturally  finds  its  way  into  conversation,  and 
without  future  obligations.  His  mind  is  fatigued 
with  obligations ;  his  relief  consists  largely  in  being 
irresponsible.  He  is  in  a  frame  of  mind  for  what 
Wiliam  James  has  called  a  moral  holiday.  We  can 
sjTupathize  with  him;  without  any  such  excuse  as 
his,  most  of  us  feel  the  need  for  an  occasional  moral 
holiday. 

Such  a  relationship  is  neither  objectionable  nor 
impossible.  For  example,  a  British  soldier  on  leave 
in  Paris  ** picked  up,"  as  he  said  to  me,  a  little 
French  girl  on  the  Champs  Elysees.  It  was  his  first 
visit  to  Paris.     She  called  a  taxi,  and  took  him  to 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  181 

various  places  which  she  thought  a  stranger  would 
care  to  see.  They  had  dinner  together  and  went  to 
a  theater.  After  it  was  over  she  said,  ''Good  night, 
I  must  go  home  now, ' '  and  left  him.  I  do  not  know 
how  often  this  particular  poise  is  to  be  found;  but 
I  believe  it  is  more  frequent  than  the  suspicious 
eye  imagines.  It  has  its  difficulties ;  and  is  obviously 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  general  policy.  But  it  may 
serve  to  point  the  way  to  what  is  possible. 

Among  the  possibilities  are  the  admission  of 
qualified  women  into  service  at  the  canteens  both 
within  and  outside  the  war  zone.  Thousands  of 
English  women, — I  have  heard  the  number  stated  at 
30,000,  and  a  number  of  American  women  are 
already  engaged  in  this  work,  which  should  be  ex- 
tended. What  is  wanted  is  the  woman  who  has 
unlimited  good  fellowship  together  with  unlimited 
good  sense  and  poise,  a  type  of  woman  in  which 
America  is  peculiarly  rich,  though  the  official  diffi- 
culties of  excluding  the  undesirables,  the  faddists, 
and  the  excitables,  are  very  great.  The  opening  of 
cafes  and  tea-houses  in  the  cities  is  also  of  use; 
though  it  suffers  by  comparison  because  of  the 
greater  formality  which  our  women  feel  obliged  to 
assume  in  the  city.  The  Red  Triangle  huts  in  the 
main  centers  have  a  certain  number  of  women 
helpers;  but  there  is  for  the  most  part  a  palpable 
pressure  of  decorum  and  caution  which  discour- 
ages the  gayer  give-and-take.  In  Liverpool,  and,  I 
am  told,  in  Leeds,  an  experiment  is  being  made 


182  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

which  sounds  promising.  There  is  a  refreshment 
room  with  a  dancing-floor  and  music ;  and  into  this 
place  any  man  in  uniform  may  bring  any  woman  he 
chooses,  and  the  pair  may  enjoy  themselves,  at 
small  expense,  so  long  as  they  remain  within  liberal 
bounds  of  propriety.  There  the  men  meet  their 
acquaintances;  and  there  any  respectable  girl  may 
spend  a  pleasant  evening  with  a  soldier  under  good 
auspices  and  without  any  intrusive  restrictions, 
while  the  declassees,  whom  there  is  no  attempt  to 
exclude,  being  on  the  whole  less  intelligent  and  at- 
tractive, suffer  in  comparison;  and  the  men  grad- 
ually tend  to  drop  them  in  favor  of  their  more 
scrupulous  sisters. 

All  of  these  things  will  increase  the  percentage  of 
men  who  retain  their  orginal  principle,  by  making 
the  cost  less  severe  at  the  critical  moment.  But  no 
amount  of  effort  can  eliminate  the  intrinsic  diflSculty 
of  keeping  straight.  Times  of  war  are  inevitably 
times  when  the  staying  power  of  a  man's  scruples 
is  put  to  the  severest  test;  when  there  is  a  rapid 
slaughter  of  the  morally  unprepared  and  the  morally 
weak;  and  when  the  fine  and  strong  come  out  the 
finer  and  stronger  for  the  ordeal.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  new  situation  which  makes  it  either  necessary 
or  probable  that  any  man  will  lose  the  fight,  unless 
it  is  that  when  the  numerous  moments  come  in 
which  he  asks  himself  the  question,  "Why  not?"  he 
has  no  certain  answer  to  give.     And  this  fact  in- 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  183 

dicates  where  the  real  remedy  and  prophylactic  must 
be  sought. 

A  Canadian  banker,  returning  on  the  same  ship 
with  me  from  Liverpool,  told  me  that  he  had  a  son 
in  training  who  would  soon  be  ready  to  go  to  the 
front.  '*!  am,  of  course,  concerned  for  his  safety," 
he  said,  ''but  I  am  a  hundred  times  more  concerned 
for  his  standards.  The  only  thing  that  I  worry 
over,  as  I  think  of  him,  is  the  question  whether 
he  will  come  back  as  sound  of  spirit  as  he  is  now." 
"What  reasons  have  you  given  him  for  keeping 
straight?"  I  asked.  ''No  reasons.  He  knows  well 
enough  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong,  just  as  well 
as  he  knows  black  from  white." 

I  would  not  wish  to  be  behind  this  Scotch-Cana- 
dian father  in  my  respect  for  the  moral  intuitions. 
But  I  have  no  faith  that  intuition  is  a  sufficient  reli- 
ance under  any  circumstances — still  less  under 
present  circumstances.  If  an  intuition  is  valid,  there 
are  assignable  reasons  for  it;  and  to  have  the  rea- 
sons— together  with  a  proviso  that  the  reasons  are 
never  complete — is  an  important  reserve  to  fall 
back  upon.  I  should  want  to  add  to  the  arsenal  of 
any  boy  of  mine  a  few  reasons  for  the  standard  of 
conduct  I  believe  in.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  every 
American  soldier  could,  with  advantage,  be  re- 
minded in  advance  that  America  has  its  own  stand- 
ards, which  have  a  reasonable  claim  upon  his  par- 
ticular regard. 

For  if  we,  in  America,  have  any  achievement  in 


184  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

the  field  of  civilization  to  be  proud  of — apart  from 
our  great  experiment  in  democracy — it  is  our  atti- 
tude towards  women.  I  am  making  no  claim  for 
national  righteousness  such  as  might  be  shown  (or 
more  probably  disproved)  by  comparative  statistics 
of  disease  and  crime.  I  am  simply  saying  that 
America,  the  assimilating  America,  in  spite  of  the 
struggle  of  all  the  traditions  in  the  melting-pot,  has 
a  genuine  nationality,  a  state  of  public  mind,  re- 
flected in  literature  and  art  as  well  as  in  law  and 
custom.  And  without  attempting  to  define  more 
explicitly  the  American  attitude  towards  women,  or 
to  describe  the  free  and  comradely  and  honestly 
chivalrous  relations  that  have  gro\sTi  out  of  it  here 
and  there,  I  simply  state  it  as  my  belief  that  in  this 
respect  we  have  hit  upon  something  worthy  of  par- 
ticular adherence,  because  its  principles  are  valid 
everywhere. 

There  are  always  two  ways  of  taking  differences 
of  temperament  and  their  expression  in  custom  and 
manners.  One  may  say,  **  Customs  vary,  and  each 
mode  of  life  is  justified  on  its  own  ground :  morality 
is  a  matter  of  the  folkways,  the  mores  which  can 
make  anything  right."  Or  he  may  say,  *' There  is 
a  better  and  a  worse  in  the  case;  and  our  way  is 
better."  The  latter  sounds  dogmatic  and  narrow; 
it  seems  to  stand  for  an  attitude  which  would  render 
all  possible  broadening  effects  of  travel  null  and 
void  from  the  start.  My  o\\ti  deliberate  judgment  is 
that,  in  this  case,  it  is  the  truth.    If  we  judge,  witli 


WAB  AND  WOMEN  185 

the  prevalent  social  philosophy,  that  every  custom 
is  justified  by  its  existence,  we  should  recommend  to 
our  boys  to  **do  in  Rome  as  the  Romans  do" — or  as 
they  appear  to  do.  Already,  largely  under  the  in- 
fluence of  European  literature  and  habit,  many 
tendencies  in  social  psychology  current  among  us 
have  been  favoring  (as  immature  cosmopolitanism 
always  does)  the  complete  surrender  of  American 
peculiarities  on  this  point,  as  being  merely  provin- 
cial. 

If  we  decline  to  make  this  surrender,  or  if  we  can- 
not accept  the  theory  that  each  custom  is  justified  in 
its  o\vn  habitat,  we  must  have  our  reasons.  And 
there  are  two  reasons  in  particular  which  lead  me  to 
adhere  to  the  American  view. 

First :  prostitution,  even  in  its  kindliest  guises,  is 
inconsistent  with  democracy.  It  implies  stratifica- 
tion, at  least  among  women ;  and  a  relegation  of  one 
stratum  to  a  lower  level  by  those  very  men  who 
claim  the  privilege  of  moving  freely  in  both  levels. 
A  relationship  which  you  are  unwilling  to  acknowl- 
edge among  your  other  relationships  can  accord 
with  the  ideas  only  of  those  w^ho  regard  some  hu- 
man beings  as  so  much  better  than  others  that  the 
others  are  only  fit  to  serve  them.  But  no  man  who 
supposes  himself  fighting  for  democracy  can  afford 
to  admit  into  his  life  any  such  contradictory  prin- 
ciple. 

Second :  every  human  relation  has  its  obligations ; 
and  there  is  one  obligation  which,  as  I  see  it,  goes 


186  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

with  all  human  relationships.  It  is  the  obligation  of 
treating  every  human  being  according  to  what  that 
being  is  capable  of,  not  according  to  what  he  or  she 
at  the  moment  is.  Every  man,  on  this  basis,  is  the 
guardian  of  the  better  self  of  every  person  he  deals 
with,  including  the  woman  who  waives  her  oavti 
claim  to  such  regard.  He  caimot  without  damage 
to  himself  use  her  for  his  pleasure  and  sign  off  this 
general  obligation  of  respect,  not  to  mention  the 
more  specific  obligations  naturally  growing  out  of 
that  relationship. 

The  thing  we  have  gone  out  to  fight  is  a  form  of 
cjTiicism — cynicism  accepted  as  a  philosophy  of 
life,  and  with  a  great  army  behind  it.  Cynicism  is 
simply  the  consistent  denial  of  the  two  principles 
we  have  mentioned:  it  estimates  human  nature  in 
material  terms  and  is  consequently  ready  to  exploit 
it  without  responsibility ;  it  rejects  moral  democracy 
in  favor  of  moral  privilege  and  social  duplicity.  The 
greatest  peril  of  war,  and  one  of  its  common  tend- 
encies, is  that  the  cynicism  of  the  enemy  should 
subtly  infect  and  conquer  the  forces  brought  against 
him,  even  while  he  is  being  driven  from  the  field. 

But  we  have  also  to  look  beyond  the  war  to  the 
unprecedented  task  in  which  our  fighting  men  are 
to  join  with  the  rest  of  us  in  cutting  away  from  our 
civilization  the  cynical  elements  which  have  brought 
this  wreck  upon  it,  and  in  building  an  honester  and 
better  world.  For  this  task  no  clarity  of  head  and 
no  firmness  of  resolution  can  be  too  great.    There  is 


WAR  AND  WOMEN  187 

a  practical  consideration  which  has  had  its  part  in 
shaping  the  American  standard,  and  which  will  have 
increasing  weight  everywhere  in  the  years  ahead 
of  us,  namely,  that  the  serious  work  of  the  world  is 
too  pressing  to  allow  responsible  men  to  play  with 
the  absorbing  entanglements  of  the  irregular  games 
of  sex.  Only  the  simple  life  of  the  family  is  com- 
patible with  that  repose  and  whole-heartedness  of 
effort  which  can  carry  men  or  nations  to  the  level 
of  achievement  henceforth  demanded  of  them.  For 
both  men  and  nations,  the  line  between  success  and 
failure,  or  between  greatness  and  mediocrity,  will  be 
close  drawn ;  and  the  powerful  impetus  of  sex  inter- 
est must  be  interpreted  so  that  it  will  second  and 
magnify  the  force  of  the  main  thrust  of  life,  not 
oppose  or  confuse  it. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  lead  me  to 
believe  in,  and  to  plead  for,  the  American  standard 
as  valid  everywhere.  There  is  a  certain  proportion, 
I  believe  a  large  proportion,  of  our  men  that  will 
remain  straight  under  any  circumstances.  They 
are  deterred  from  the  easier  course  not  by  any  fear 
of  physical  results,  nor  by  regulations,  nor  by  any 
overt  reasons ;  but  simply  by  an  ingrained  soundness 
of  feeling,  or  by  a  sense  of  right  lying  deeper  than 
the  human  level.  And  many  another  man  will  lose 
his  mooring  for  a  time,  recognize  the  fact,  and  pull 
himself  together.  Those  who  are  swept  into  the  cur- 
rent are  men  whose  standards  have  only  a  conven- 
tional and  superficial  footing,  or  none  at  all;   in 


188  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

them  our  civilization  has  already  failed.  If  we  do 
our  part,  most  of  our  boys  will  come  back  the  better 
for  their  experience — provided  the  war  does  not  last 
too  long. 

And  our  part?  It  is  first  of  all  to  achieve  a  better 
grasp  of  our  o^^^l  convictions,  such  as  they  are ;  and 
to  weed  out  from  them  all  that  is  merely  traditional 
and  inert.  It  is  as  fatal  to  condemn  what  is  harm- 
less as  to  approve  what  is  wrong.  Nowhere,  per- 
haps, is  the  right  balance  between  meaningless 
rigidity  and  ruinous  laissez  faire  so  hard  to  strike. 
Hospitality  of  mind  together  with  firmness  of 
character  will  alone  fit  us  for  meeting  the  strains  of 
the  moment,  and  save  the  day  for  the  America  of  to- 
morrow. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAR 

The  effects  of  war  upon  human  nature  depend  very- 
much  on  its  duration.  The  whole  problem  of  morale, 
from  the  military  angle,  changes  with  the  prolonga- 
tion of  the  war.  The  difficulties  of  dealing  with  fear 
and  with  the  inner  frictions  of  a  raw  military  ma- 
chine diminish.  The  difficulties  of  inciting  fresh  in- 
terest and  the  unlimited  faith  that  often  works  mili- 
tary miracles,  increase.  And  for  the  soldier,  the 
memory  of  his  civil  self  begins  to  grow  unclear,  as 
the  routine  parts  of  the  business  of  war-making 
settle  into  second  nature,  and  the  more  insidious  and 
subconscious  parts  of  the  strain  of  war  begin  to  do 
their  work. 

This  does  not  mean  that  a  long  war  affects  all  men 
alike.  The  constantly  recurring  question.  Does  war 
improve  men  or  deteriorate  them?  is  a  question 
which  has  no  answer.  For  war  itself  does  neither 
one  thing  nor  another.  Certainly  neither  war  nor 
any  other  drastic  experience  leaves  men  where  it 
found  them.  But  any  exposure  of  large  bodies  of 
men  to  extraordinary  conditions  will  segregate  them 
into  two  groups,  those  who  are  strengthened  by  the 
ordeal  and  those  who  are  weakened  by  it.  And,  as  a 
matter  of  common  sense,  the  longer  the  campaign, 
the  larger  the  probable  number  in  the  latter  class; 

189 


190  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

the  more  need  for  a  certain  amount  of  forethought, 
and  perhaps  for  a  degree  of  psychological  insight  to 
show  where  the  subtler  strains  are  located. 

The  human  being  builds  habits  and  unbuilds  them 
more  readily  than  any  other  animal:  there  is  a 
wholly  unmeasured  amount  of  "come-back"  in  men 
who  have  been  thrown  out  of  their  normal  grooves 
for  a  period  of  years.  It  is  not  hard  to  lose  ready 
use  of  a  foreign  language;  but  it  is  next  to  impos- 
sible for  most  people  to  forget  it  beyond  fairly  easy 
recovery;  and  the  same  is  true  of  other  acquired 
abilities.  This  fact  should  lighten  the  reasonable 
anxiety  of  many  men  who  feel  it  as  one  of  the  deeper 
wastes  of  war  that  their  former  skills  and  powers 
are  irrevocably  dropping  from  them  by  disuse.  And 
it  should  also  remind  us  that  even  a  warping  strain 
has  less  effect  than  at  the  time  it  seems  to  have. 

There  are  two  ways  in  particular  in  which  these 
longer  strains  of  war  may  affect  morale,  which  are 
sometimes  as  puzzling  as  the  "going  stale"  of  an 
athlete  in  the  midst  of  his  training,  and  quite  as 
worth  an  effort  to  understand.  The  one  touches 
with  a  sort  of  psychological  blight  his  pugnacity,  or 
fighting  temper;  the  other  his  sense  of  solidarity 
with  his  nation. 

To  speak  of  the  first.  One  might  expect  that  as 
the  soldier  becomes  expert  in  the  business  of  kill- 
ing, and  as  that  mental  difficulty  which  at  first 
brought  out  the  trait  of  "severity"  disappears  into 
habit,  he  would  go  to  his  fighting  with  greater  relish, 


THE  LONGER  STRA.INS  OF  WAB  191 

and  like  Achilles  *'put  might  into  his  rage."  If, 
instead,  might  somehow  leaks  out  of  it,  the  reason 
may  lie,  not  in  the  revulsion  that  follows  all  passion, 
but  rather  in  the  subconscious  logic  of  the  case. 

For  while  it  is  a  part  of  the  mental  achievement  of 
the  soldier  that  he  holds  his  own  life  at  no  high 
value,  and  that  of  his  enemy  at  less  than  nothing,  it 
is  a  part  of  his  creed  as  a  soldier  and  a  citizen  that 
the  lives  at  home,  the  lives  which  directly  or  indi- 
rectly he  is  defending,  have  a  high  value,  sometimes 
one  says,  a  sacred  value.  It  is  not  easy  to  keep  these 
two  divergent  estimates  of  the  value  of  different 
human  lives  from  spreading  and  interfering  with 
one  another  to  some  extent.  And  it  stands  to  rea- 
son that  the  person  whose  preoccupation  day  and 
night  is  the  destruction  of  the  enemy,  who  re- 
joices, and  ought  to  rejoice,  in  the  numbers  he 
has  accounted  for  as  an  Indian  in  his  scalps, 
in  whom  the  hunting  instinct  and  the  game  in- 
stinct come  to  lend  an  aboriginal  zest  to  the  work 
of  war  (a  trait  by  no  means  confined  to  the  firing 
line),  and  who  of  necessity  becomes  all  but  indiffer- 
ent to  the  spectacle  of  suffering,  mutilation  and 
death, — it  stands  to  reason  that  this  person  may 
find  his  sense  of  the  '* sacred  value  of  human  life" 
somewhat  dulled.  Yet  it  is  this  sense  upon  which 
the  whole  fabric  of  ''human  rights"  is  built,  which 
is  the  parent  of  our  wrath  when  these  rights  are 
violated,  and  so  stands  at  the  basis  of  every  cause 
worth  fighting  for.     Hence  the  deepening  paradox 


192  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

in  the  soldier's  position,  that  there  is  in  the  busi- 
ness of  fighting  a  tendency  to  undermine  the  lively 
sense  of  the  things  worth  fighting  for,  and  there- 
with his  owTi  fighting-spirit. 

With  time,  it  is  always  likely  that  a  certain  num- 
ber will  succumb  to  this  trend.  Confused  by  the  clash 
of  the  principles  that  fit  their  divergent  selves,  they 
allow  the  self  of  the  foreground  to  cancel  the  self 
of  the  ideal  background  which  alone  justifies  their 
business,  becoming  ''hardened  veterans"  in  more 
senses  than  one,  falling  back  on  a  dour  superiority 
to  all  ''sentiment,"  like  the  old  Prussian  soldier  w^ho 
said  that  after  twenty-two  years  of  campaigning,  he 
had  come  to  loathe  the  very  sound  of  such  words  as 
justice,  loyalty,  honor,  etc.,  associated  as  they  wore 
in  his  mind  with  the  purely  pragmatic  employment 
of  spurring  men  to  fight.  A  soldier  can  work  a  good 
deal  of  this  skeptical  tough-mindedness  into  his  dis- 
position without  ceasing  to  be  very  dependable  fight- 
ing-material,— up  to  a  certain  point.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say,  however,  that  the  morale  that  comes  of  it  is, 
at  best,  of  the  Prussian  type :  it  is  capable  of  strong 
things,  but  not  of  the  limitless  clan  of  those  legions 
of  young  devotees  that  went  into  the  slaughter  at 
Mons,  at  Vimy,  at  Verdun,  at  Gallipoli,  and  whose 
comparative  fighting  value  is  now  evident  on  the 
fields  of  France.  The  mentality  which  comes  of  the 
surrender  of  the  man  in  the  soldier  to  his  fore- 
ground is  not  the  soldierly  mentality,  though  it  may 
pose  as  such :  it  is  the  dry  rot  of  soldierdom. 


THE  LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAR  193 

Most  of  our  soldiers  carry  with  them  the  natural 
antidote  for  this  disease.  Whatever  part  of  the 
profession  of  arms  may  take  root  in  their  affection, 
the  carnage  itself  is  kept  outside.  Few  men,  what- 
ever their  occupation,  are  wholly  hypnotized  by 
their  own  ''business-personalities,"  and  least  of  all 
the  soldier.  Particularly  in  the  fantastic  business  of 
war,  there  are  strange  psychological  eddies  and  un- 
dercurrents ;  and  the  mental  bents  that  come  out  of 
it  are  not  the  obvious  ones.  Frequently  it  is  the 
surgeon — whose  whole  professional  activity  is  gov- 
erned by  the  principle  of  saving  life — that  becomes 
callous  and  wholesale;  whereas  the  soldier,  whose 
practical  purpose  is  wrapped  up  in  the  toll  of  his 
slaughter,  may  acquire  in  his  habitual  feeling  a 
solemn  gentleness  like  that  sometimes  attributed  to 
the  angel  of  death. 

Morale  may  also  be  subtly  affected  in  a  long  war — 
and  this  is  the  second  point  of  which  w^e  were  going 
to  speak — by  a  falling  out  of  touch  and  out  of  step 
between  soldiers  and  civilians,  so  that  the  sense 
of  solidarity  with  one's  own  nation  is  gradually 
weakened. 

It  has  always  hitherto  been  one  of  the  incidents  of 
a  long  war  that  the  civil  and  the  military  mentalities 
tended  to  diverge,  through  the  accumulated  effects 
of  feeding  on  a  different  set  of  experiences  and 
thoughts.  Unless  there  are  counteracting  influ- 
ences, all  divisions  tend  to  increase:  and  while  the 


194  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

soldier  is  likely  to  find  himself  the  specialist  in 
action,  with  insufficient  diet  of  thought  and  feeling, 
he  is  for  the  same  reason  likely  to  think  of  the  rest 
of  the  nation,  whether  civil  or  official,  as  the  special- 
ists in  talking  and  theorizing,  too  far  away  from  the 
facts  as  he  sees  them  to  be  trustworthy  guides  and 
directors. 

In  the  present  war  there  has  so  far  been  very  little 
of  the  friction  and  sense  of  divergence  between  the 
two  groups.  Yet  there  have  been  occasional  expres- 
sions from  the  civilian  side  of  a  more  or  less  wistful 
sense  that  some  impassable  gulf  has  arisen  between 
the  stay-at-homes  and  those  who  have  plunged  into 
the  physical  maelstrom. 

And  there  have  been  occasional  observations  from 
the  military  side  of  a  failure  of  civilian  sympathy. 
**  An  army,"  writes  a  soldier  on  leave,  "does  not  live 
by  munitions  alone,  but  also  by  the  fellowship  in  a 
moral  idea,  and  that  you  cannot  give. ' '  The  civilian, 
the  writer  felt,  is  too  easily  able  to  relieve  his  con- 
sciousness of  the  insistent  physical  torment  of  war, 
the  suffering  of  others.  He  has  the  proper  senti- 
ment toward  it  all :  he  can  use  the  right  words,  even 
more  violent  words ;  but  this  is  what  makes  the  situa- 
tion most  painful.  For  he  cannot  fill  these  words 
with  the  meaning  they  have  for  the  soldier :  he  can- 
not know  what  they  mean,  and  decency  would  recom- 
mend silence.  *  *  Oh,  how  I  wish  they  would  all  shut 
up!"  Mr.  Jacks  reports  one  such  soldier  as  putting 
it.     In  my  wanderings  from  war  zone  to  capital 


THE  LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAR  195 

cities  and  back  again,  one  impression  was  every- 
where repeated  and  deepened, — how  immensely  the 
gamut  of  human  experience  in  war  time  is  extended, 
how  far  apart  the  extremes  are  in  all  sensible 
particulars,  how  much  is  trusted  to  the  vicarious- 
ness  of  our  minds;*  and  because  of  all  this,  how 
dangerously  society  is  organized.  A  step  from 
a  Paris  street  full  of  the  soldiers  of  a  dozen  na- 
tions, from  a  conversation  perhaps  with  a  man 
just  now  from  the  front,  into  some  formal  tea-room 
managed  it  may  be  by  great  ladies  for  the  '^ benefit" 
of  these  same  soldiers,  would  sometimes  start  a 
doubt  whether  all  our  present  stock  of  wisdom  and 
imagination  are  enough  to  span  these  distances,  and 
hold  the  understandings  of  the  world  together. 

But  it  is  hardly  a  misfortune,  if  different  ways 
of  looking  at  things  arise  from  wide  differences  of 
experience :  it  would  be  a  misfortune  if  they  did  not 
arise.  Society  can  ill  afford  to  lose  the  pioneer's 
view  of  itself,  even  if  it  involves  the  conviction  that 
many  things  in  it,  and  many  people,  still  need  to  be 
shaken  up.  My  own  fear  is  rather  that  reflections 
of  this  sort,  among  our  own  soldiers,  may  not  yet 
have  struck  deep  enough. 

The  sense  of  divergence  only  becomes  a  menace 
to  morale,  in  or  out  of  the  army,  when  the  soldier 
mentally  gives  society  up,  adopts  fatalistic  views 
of  human  stupidity  and  selfishness,  and  decides  that 
the  breach  of  sympathy  is  hopeless.    This  kind  of 

•Page  48. 


196  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

pessimism  can  never  take  root  while  thoughtful  men 
on  each  side  are  as  alert  as  they  are  to  the  need  of 
keeping  the  ways  of  understanding  open,  while 
everything  written  or  spoken  by  soldiers  is  eagerly 
consumed  by  the  public,  and  while  the  various 
civilian  agencies  accompanying  the  army,  and 
rapidly  becoming  skilled  in  the  arts  of  mental  mid- 
dlemen, continue  to  serve  as  an  army  of  interpreters 
between  the  two  groups  of  minds.  It  will  be  hard 
to  kill  the  essential  sympathy  between  them,  so  long 
as  the  deeper  common  sense  of  the  soldier — fully 
aware  that  the  State  he  serves  is  not  identical  with 
this  or  that  group  of  civilians — continues  its  hope- 
ful comment  on  his  occasional  bitter  or  melancholy 
reactions. 

And  after  all,  this  deeper  judge  and  self-critic  in 
the  soldier's  mind  is  the  essential  thing  in  the  whole 
psychological  outcome  of  war-making.  No  one  can 
say  what  effect  war,  be  it  short  or  long,  will  have  on 
human  beings  unless  he  knows  the  longest  thoughts 
of  those  beings.  It  is  the  slant  of  the  mind  that 
determines  what  'effect'  any  cause  shall  have.  To 
take  a  minor  instance :  there  are  probably  few  sol- 
diers at  the  front  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  feel- 
ing of  being  an  almost  negligible  atom  in  the  im- 
mense business  of  war.  What  'effect'  will  such  a 
feeling  produce  on  one's  temper?  If  the  soldier 
happens  to  be  a  character  of  Barbusse,  it  may  be 
this: 


THE  LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAR  197 

'*In  all  that,  you  see  what  we  amount  to,  we  who 
are  here  ...  so  many  drops  of  blood  amid  the 
deluge  of  men  and  things, ' ' — 

a  sense  of  exposure  and  helplessness,  promising  to 
reduce  morale  sooner  or  later  to  the  passive  variety. 
If  it  happens  to  be  another  French  soldier,  this  time 
a  real  one,  the  effect  may  be  this : 

''With  it  all  comes  the  consciousness  of  one's  own 
role,  which  is  humble  and  yet  great.  For  that  wall 
is  a  wall  of  steel  made  of  glittering,  separate  points, 
— and  I  am  one  of  them!"* 

And  thus  it  is  with  all  the  other  pressures  of  war 
upon  character :  the  bent  they  produce  will  vary  with 
the  ideas  upon  which  they  fall,  and  defeat  all  obvious 
prophecies.  We  have  no  right  even  to  assert  that 
war  will  generate  in  men  a  ''military  point  of  view." 
To  argue  that  men  who  have  been  long  schooled  in 
this  or  that  of  the  ways  of  war  will  therefore  be 
enamored  of  those  ways  is  to  leave  human  nature 
out  of  the  calculation. 

One  fine  day  on  top  of  a  London  bus  a  lad  sat 
down  beside  me,  and  after  a  minute  or  two  of  silence 
burst  out  with  the  remark,  "Gee,  but  these  feel 
good!"  "These,"  I  learned  after  some  vain  specu- 
lation, were  his  civilian  clothes.  "It's  the  first  time 
I've  been  in  'em  for  three  years."  Then  I  noticed 
the  bandage  where  one  of  his  hands  should  have 
been,  and  understood  his  further  words:  "I  got 
off  lucky,  believe  me ;  and  I  'm  going  back  to  Amer- 
ica, the  first  ship."    What  this  lad  felt  at  the  mo- 

*From  "The  Lieutenant's  Story,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  Feb.,  1917, 
p.  280. 


198  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

ment  about  his  clothes,  many  another  lad  will  feel 
about  various  inner  aspects  of  war-making.  The  law 
of  habit,  as  we  have  found  it*,  is  a  spiritual  law:  it 
is  the  ultimate  attitude,  not  the  visible  practice,  that 
decides  what  states  of  mind  will  come  out  of  the  war. 

The  soldier's  life  is  unsettled:  will  that  produce 
in  him  a  habit  of  restlessness  and  roving?  He  is 
accustomed  to  destroy,  not  to  construct:  will  that 
make  of  him  a  waster,  and  put  him  out  of  patience 
with  the  slow  building  of  production?  He  is  used 
to  sensational  and  sudden  effectiveness:  will  this 
impose  on  him  a  dramatic  or  melodramatic  mind, 
make  all  ''piping  times  of  peace"  dull  to  him,  and 
unnerve  him  for  all  quiet  labor?  He  is  habituated 
to  consuming,  living  by  requisition  on  goods  sup- 
plied lavishly  (sometimes)  by  others:  will  this 
create  in  him  the  temper  of  dependency? 

The  soldier  has  been  through-and-through  an 
executive,  schooled  in  sharp  decision,  braced  for 
grim  issues  involving  the  overthrow  of  an  enemy: 
will  he  now  be  unfit  for  judicial  thinking,  and  will 
** adjustment"  in  the  give  and  take  of  social  con- 
struction,— will  ''adjustment"  seem  to  him  a  vile 
and  loathsome  word?  He  has  been  drilled  in  army 
methods  and  "system":  will  he  come  back  believing 
that  all  things  can  be  achieved  by  strategy  and  an- 
alysis, and  carried  out  "by  the  numbers"?  Will  he 
desire  to  storm  education,  culture,  art,  religion  it- 
self by  "intensive  methods"?  Or  will  he  come  back 

•Page  125. 


THE  LONGER  STRAINS  OF  WAR  199 

eager  to  discard  the  more  mechanical  linkages  of 
man  to  man,  and  to  cherish  the  role  of  reflection, 
leisure,  the  listening  mind,  the  mystical  element  m 
all  spiritual  efficiency? 

Above  all,  the  soldier  nas  borne  the  brunt,  and  he 
knows  it  What  will  be  the  eftect  of  that?  What 
argument  is  it  building  up  m  him  to-day?  "Now, 
civilians,  our  share  is  done :  we  rest  on  our  laurels ; 
give  us  our  leisure,  and  our  rewards"?  Or  is  it 
this :  ' '  We  have  learned  to  choose  the  harder  part, 
and  to  do  more  than  our  share ;  give  us  your  heaviest 
burdens,  and  we  will  show  you  how  men  can  carry 
them"? 

There  is  no  prophet  who  ought  to  venture  an  an- 
swer to  these  questions,  unless  he  can  see  with  what 
hidden  approvals,  rebellions,  provisos,  the  alleged 
'habits'  are  being  accepted.  It  is  a  man's  idea,  his 
philosophy,  that  fixes  the  angle  of  impact  of  all  ex- 
perience upon  him,  and  so  decides  what  'effect' 
that  experience  will  have.  But  by  the  same  sign  it 
can  be  said  with  some  certainty  that  if  the  ideas 
w^ith  which  a  man  is  carrying  on  his  service  are 
right  at  the  core,  its  total  effect  on  him — whatever 
its  character  or  duration — will  be  for  the  better: 
he  will  come  out  of  it  broadened,  liberated,  ennobled 
by  the  daily  companionship  with  duty,  wise  with  the 
wisdom  of  one  who  has  explored  the  extremes  of 
the  human  lot. 

No  one  need  fear  that  the  beauty  of  the  gratitude 
of  a  delivered  world  will  make  our  returning  soldiers 


200  MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

over-proud ;  the  reverse  will  be  the  case.  But  there 
will  be  men  in  that  multitude  who  will  keep  the  next 
generation  true  to  the  genuine  proportions  ot  things, 
because  what  they  have  seen  they  can  neither  forget 
nor  allow  others  to  forget. 

'•We  have  been  so  long  on  the  frontiers  of  hu- 
manity that  we  may  cross  over  from  one  moment  to 
another.  Beyond  the  border,  everything  is  stripped 
of  superfluities,  is  reduced  to  lowest  terms.  In  this 
collapse  of  animate  matter,  in  this  besetting  destruc- 
tion, we  naturally  attribute  less  vital  force  to  the 
body  that  is  so  quickly  shattered  than  to  the  thought 
that  abides."* 

In  such  minds,  war,  the  most  drastically  phys- 
ical of  all  human  works,  does  indeed  become  the 
vehicle  for  the  most  spiritual  of  achievements.  And 
the  morale  springing  from  such  philosophy  may  be 
counted  on  to  win  the  wars  that  lie  beyond  the  war. 

•Henri  Malherbe  in  La  Flamme  au  Poing. 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 

0035523450 


c^ 


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